PriiLic  SCHOOLS  OF  CHICAGO. 


PRESIDENT'S  REPORT. 


REPRINTED    FROM    THE 


FIFTEENTH    ANNUAL   REPORT 


of  ?Stiucatton 


1869. 


WITH  THE  COMPLIMENTS 


.  JSL  JSrigp. 


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REPORT 


PRESIDENT  OF  THE  BOARD. 


REPORT. 


Gentlemen  of  the  Board  of  Education: 

ONLY  ten  years  have  elapsed  since  the  President 
of  this  Board  first  made  a  report  of  the  progress 
of  the  schools  for  the  year  then  just  past,  and  pre- 
sented his  suggestions  for  the  work  of  the  year  to 
come. 

Meanwhile  the  city  has  enlarged  in  area  from 
fifteen  square  miles  to  thirty-eight,  and  increased 
in  population  from  fifty  thousand  to  three  hundred 
thousand  inhabitants. 

Her  schools  were  then  thirteen  in  number,  em- 
ploying one  hundred  and  one  teachers,  with  an 
average  enrolment  of  5,516  pupils.  The  present 
year  closes  with  thirty  schools,  employing  four 
hundred  and  seventy-nine  teachers,  with  an  aver- 
age enrolment  of  22,838  pupils. 

At  that  time  the  total  expenses  of  the  schools 
were  $70,000,  distributed  as  follows:  Salaries  of 
teachers  and  superintendent,  $43,000;  incidentals, 
$12,000;  rent  of  buildings,  $15,000. 


4  Public  Schools. 

The  total  expenses  of  the  current  year  have 
been  $746,320,  divided  as  follows:  Salaries  of 
teachers  and  superintendent,  $353,815;  other  cur- 
rent expenses,  $100,120;  for  permanent  improve- 
ments, $292,385. 

To  secure  the  most  economical  expenditure  of 
so  large  an  amount  of  money,  and  to  prevent 
waste,  requires  the  utmost  care  and  scrutiny.  It 
should  be  a  source  of  great  gratification  and  thank- 
fulness, that  we  are  able  to  present  to  our  con- 
stituents a  report  in  which  exists  so  much  that 
is  commendable,  so  little  that  is  deserving  of 
censure. 

We  have  added  to  our  school  accommodations 
during  the  year  4,872  seats;  by  the  erection  of  the 
Clarke,  Franklin,  and  Hayes  houses,  each  945 
seats,  and  the  Elm  Street  and  Wentworth  Avenue 
Primaries,  each  512  seats,  together  with  1,013  seats 
in  additional  rented  rooms;  increasing  our  corps 
of  teachers  78. 

We  have  also  contracted  for  full  sized  buildings 
upon  the  Forest  Avenue  and  Larrabee  Street  lots, 
and  for  twelve-room  Primary  buildings  on  the 
LaSalle  Street  and  Mitchell  Street  lots.  These 
will  be  ready  for  occupancy  during  the  coming 
school  year. 


Report  of  the  President.  5 

There  has  been  a  wide  spread  misconception  on 
the  part  of  the  public  in  general,  induced  by  the 
erroneous  representations  of  the  Press,  regarding 
the  policy  of  the  Board  in  the  erection  of  school 
buildings.  We  have  been  accused  of  squandering 
the  public  moneys  in  the  erection  of  "  Seventy 
Thousand  Dollar  Palaces,"  in  places  where  half 
that  sum  would  go  just  as  far  in  furnishing  seats 
to  the  thousands  of  children  now  denied  admission 
to  our  schools  for  lack  of  room.  The  great  diffi- 
culty of  procuring  school  sites  of  sufficient  dimen- 
sions, with  clear  titles,  at  judicious  prices,  in 
thickly  settled  localities,  and  the  requirements  of 
the  rapidly  growing  sections  upon  our  outskirts  in 
every  direction,  have  prevented  the  Board  from 
fully  developing  its  policy,  and  have  given  a  show 
of  color  to  a  charge  which  has  no  foundation  in 
fact. 

While  educators  differ  as  to  the  exact  number, 
it  is  admitted  by  all,  that  economy  of  classification 
and  of  means  requires,  in  cities  organized  like 
ours  for  school  purposes,  the  concentration  in 
one  school  of  not  less  than  eight  hundred  pupils 
of  all  grades,  and  many  able  teachers  place  the 
minimum  at  a  higher  figure.  In  our  schools  we 
place  sixty-three  pupils  under  the  charge  of  each 
teacher;  a  number  so  large  as  to  be  excusable  only 


6  Public  Schools. 

by  the  pressing  demands  upon  us  for  seats,  and 
greater  than  in  any  other  large  city  in  America. 

In  earlier  years,  when  our  school  buildings  were 
built  year  by  year,  by  the  taxes  directly  raised  for 
the  purpose,  which  were  of  necessity  small,  while 
the  needs  of  the  rapidly  growing  city  were  large, 
the  Board  was  forced  to  erect  such  buildings  as 
would  afford  the  greatest  number  of  seats  for  the 
least  possible  amount  of  money,  and  we  have,  as 
the  result,  the  cheap  wooden  structures  now  so 
rapidly  going  to  decay.  Nor  was  this  perhaps  so 
objectionable  since  the  accommodations  must  be 
furnished,  and  no  authorities  could  have  been 
found  willing  to  assess  a  direct  tax  sufficient  to 
provide  more  substantial  buildings.  The  taxes 
were  light,  and  the  buildings  ephemeral,  but  the 
people  received  what  they  paid  for. 

For  the  last  few  years  the  conditions  have  been 
reversed.  In  the  first  report  of  President  Holden 
to  this  Board  he  said: 

"  We  have  school  property,  paid  for  by  tax, 
valued  at  eight  hundred  thousand  dollars,  and 
while  the  city  has  borrowed  money  for  many 
public  purposes,  it  has  never  borrowed  for  school 
purposes.  I  see  no  good  reason  why  those  of 
to-day  should  be  over-taxed  to  purchase  lots  that 
are  to  double  and  treble  in  value,  and  to  erect 
permanent  buildings,  to  be  used  for  the  next 


Report  of  the  President.  7 

twenty  to  fifty  years,  while  those  who  come  after 
us,  more  able  to  bear  the  burden  than  we  of 
to-day,  are  to  enjoy  them  without  cost." 

At  the  next  succeeding  session  of  the  Legis- 
lature, largely  through  the  determined  efforts  of 
our  late  lamented  member,  Moses  W.  Leavitt, 
authority  was  given  the  city  to  issue  bonds  for  the 
erection  of  school  buildings  and  the  purchase  of 
sites;  and  the  line  of  policy  indicated  above  has 
been  pursued  —  sites  have  been  purchased,  and 
buildings  erected,  with  the  proceeds  of  bonds,  the 
interest  of  which  is  payable  semi-annually;  but  the 
bonds  themselves  are  not  due  for  twenty  years. 
The  people  of  to-day  have  been  taxed  to  pay  the 
salaries  of  the  teachers,  and  the  other  current 
expenses  of  the  schools,  and  the  interest  on  the 
bonds  —  or,  in  other  words,  the  current  expenses 
of  the  schools,  and  the  rent  of  the  buildings  they 
occupy.  The  people  of  the  next  generation  will 
pay  for  these  buildings,  and  use  them,  when  the 
bonds  mature.  The  increased  value  of  the  sites 
will  more  than  counterbalance  the  deterioration  of 
the  buildings. 

Shall  we  then  erect  temporary  structures,  which 
will  become  worthless  before  the  twenty  years 
shall  roll  away,  or  shall  we  so  build  that  when  our 
successors  pay  the  debt  they  will  possess  solid, 


8  Public  Schools. 

substantial  buildings,  worth,  with  the  sites,  more 
than  they  will  then  have  cost  ?  What  opinion 
would  they  have  of  our  fitness  for  the  positions  we 
hold  if  we  were  to  hesitate  for  a  moment  as  to  the 
policy  to  be  pursued?  Assuming  that  the  question 
admits  of  but  one  answer,  let  us  turn  to  the  question 
of  present  economy. 

The  general  policy  of  the  Board  is  to  erect  in 
each  district,  as  near  the  centre  as  possible,  a  large 
building,  to  accommodate  one  thousand  pupils,  as 
a  nucleus,  and  then  to  concentrate  around  it,  in 
different  parts  of  the  district,  Primary  buildings  as 
feeders  to  it.  The  recent  extensive  additions  to 
our  territory  have  obliged  us  to  lay  out  an  unusual 
number  of  new  districts,  and  thus  the  larger  build- 
ings have  numbered  nearly  as  many  as  the  smaller, 
instead  of  being  in  the  ratio  of  one  to  four  or  five, 
as  will  be  the  case  now  that  this  demand  has  been 
met.  But  admitting  that  no  such  exigency  had 
existed,  and  the  Board  had  built  only  the  larger 
buildings,  even  then,  though  we  might  have  been 
liable  to  censure  for  creating  large  districts,  and 
requiring  pupils  to  travel  long  distances,  a  charge 
of  extravagance  would  not  hold. 


Report  of  the  President.  9 

For  such  a  building,  on  the  most  modern  plan, 
would  be  three  stories  high,  and  would  cost,  at 
present  prices,  complete,  heated  with  the  most 
approved  steam  apparatus,  -  *$6o,ooo 

The  average  price  of  our  school  lots  where 

such  a  building  is  needed,  is  -      20,000 


Total  cost  for  one  thousand  pupils,        $80,000 
Or,  if  heated  with  furnaces,  -      75,000 

A    substantial   brick   building,    of   the    plainest 
style,  built  to   accommodate  five  hundred  pupils, 
will    cost,   at   present  prices,  furnished   complete, 
and  heated  with  furnaces,  about       -         -    $25,000 
The  same  lot  upon  which  we  should  put 
the  larger  building  will  be  required  for 
the  smaller,  say,  -      20,000 


Total  cost  for  five  hundred  pupils,     -    $45,000 


*  The  Clarke  and  Franklin  school  buildings,  completed  during  the 
present  year,  were  considerably  more  expensive  than  this,  though  not 
enough  to  make  the  larger  building  cost  more  than  double  that  of  two 
smaller  ones.  But  prices  were  relatively  much  higher  when  the  con- 
tracts for  these  buildings  were  let  than  now,  and  there  were  some 
special  circumstances  attending  their  erection  which  largely  increased 
their  cost.  The  Franklin  had  large  extras,  caused  by  changes  in  the 
plan,  and  was  also  faced  with  expensive  brick.  The  natural  surface 
of  the  prairie  at  the  Clarke  School  is  six  feet  below  the  street  grade, 
which  necessitated  twelve  feet  of  solid  masonry  below  the  first  floor. 
Again  the  cost  was  considerably  increased  by  the  inaccessibility  of  its 
situation. 

The  two  buildings  now  being  erected  will  not  reach  my  estimate. 


io  Public  Schools. 

* 

So  that  the  larger  buildings  are  absolutely  more 
economical  by  from  \2\  to  20  per  cent,  depend- 
ing upon  the  manner  of  heating  them,  than  the 
two  smaller  ones  required  to  furnish  the  same 
amount  of  accommodation.  Instead  of  the  charge 
of  lavish  expenditure  being  true,  the  very  reverse 
is  the  case,  and  there  is  no  city  in  the  Union  where 
school  buildings  have  been  constructed  with  the 
same  regard  for  economy  as  in  Chicago. 

The  Wells  Grammar  School  house,  the  last 
Boston  building,  cost  upwards  of  $80,000,  and 
accommodates  but  about  500  pupils.  The  Massa- 
chusetts Teacher  reports  Mr.  Philbrick  as  stating 
that  over  a  million  of  dollars  will  be  expended 
upon  school  buildings  in  that  city  during  the 
current  year,  and  that  equally  serviceable  build- 
ings could  be  erected  for  half  the  price,  if  the 
costly  pressed  brick,  of  which  they  will  be  built, 
were  dispensed  with,  and  only  simple  or  rustic 
ornaments  used.  The  Thayer  Street  School  house, 
erected  last  year  in  Providence,  cost  the  city 
$120,000,  and  will  seat  only  600  pupils,  while  in 
convenience  of  its  interior  it  is  far  behind  any 
of  our  houses  built  during  the  last  two  years. 
Another,  now  building  in  the  same  city,  is  ex- 
pected to  exceed  the  former  in  cost,  and  will 
accommodate  the  same  number  of  pupils. 

While    in    other    cities    the    effort   has    been   to 


Report  of  the  President.  1 1 

adapt  the  school  buildings  to  their  surroundings, 
and  to  produce  artistic  and  ornate  structures,  fre- 
quently regardless  of  expense,  we  have  rigidly 
required  of  our  architects  the  severest  stiffness  of 
outline,  and  have  tolerated  no  expense  not  abso- 
lutely necessary  to  furnish  the  required  arrange- 
ment of  the  interior. 

Our  studied  plan  has  been  to  produce  buildings 
with  conveniently  arranged  interiors,  and  we  have 
paid  no  attention  to  external  architectural  effect. 
So  far  as  arrangement  is  concerned  there  is  but 
one  serious  defect  —  we  have  not  a  single  house 
which  contains  a  hall  sufficiently  large  to  seat,  at 
one  time,  every  child  in  the  school. 

In  the  Dearborn,  Jones,  and  Kinzie  Districts  our 
public  school  system  has  lost  and  is  continuing  to 
lose  favor  with  the  better  class  of  citizens,  on 
account  of  the  long  continued  failure  of  this  Board 
to  provide  decent  and  respectable  school  accom- 
modations. Ten  years  ago  the  President  in  his 
report,  referred  to  these  as  "  very  unsuitable  for 
school  purposes  now,  and  daily  becoming  more 
so,"  and  his  successors  have  repeatedly  urged  the 
necessity  of  immediate  action. 

The  following  table,  showing  the  number  of 
pupils  attending  these  schools  from  the  east  and 
the  west  of  Dearborn  Street,  respectively,  is  the 


12  Public  Schools. 

strongest  argument  I   can  advance   in  favor  of  a 
better  class  of  buildings  therein: 


East  of       "West  of 
Dearborn.    Dearborn. 


Kinzie  School,  -       100      1,032 

Dearborn  School,  no         520 

Jones  School,  -      328         764 


538 

The  patrons  of  these  schools  may  be  divided 
into  two  very  unequal  classes:  those  who,  from 
lack  of  means,  are  compelled  to  send  to  them  or 
keep  their  children  at  home,  and  the  few  who, 
at  great  sacrifice,  support  them  from  a  desire  to 
sustain  the  system.  No  portions  of  the  city  are 
more  heavily  taxed  than  these;  no  portions  have 
such  an  utter  lack  of  accommodations.  In  our 
suburbs,  for  those  who  bought  lots  there  because 
they  were  cheap,  and  who,  with  the  cheap  homes, 
were  willing  also  for  a  time  to  be  deprived  of 
water,  gas,  pavements,  and  sewers,  and  to  be  con- 
tent with  moderate  school  privileges,  we  have 
furnished  school  accommodations  unsurpassed  in 
any  city  in  America,  while  in  the  heavily  taxed 
central  districts,  those  who  have  helped  to  pro- 
vide the  accommodations  of  the  suburbs,  have 
been  forced  to  send  their  own  children  to  private 
schools,  because  they  dared  not  risk  their  health 


Report  of  the  President.  13 

in  the  wretched  barracks  we  still,  in  these  dis- 
tricts, call  school-houses. 

The  reason  the  Boston  public  schools  stand 
so  high  in  the  estimation  of  her  own  citizens  is 
that  every  class  of  the  community  has  patron- 
ized them  generation  after  generation.  Said  the 
Rev.  James  Freeman  Clarke,  in  his  speech  at  the 
Annual  School  Festival  in  July  last: 

"  I  thank  God  for  the  public  schools  of  Boston, 
'of  Massachusetts,  of  New  England,  and  of  the 
United  States.  The  only  school  I  ever  went  to  in 
my  life  was  one  of  Boston's  public  schools,  the 
public  Latin  School.  My  father  went  to  it  before 
me,  and  my  grandfather  before  him.  Therefore 
I  ought  to  be  thankful  for  the  public  schools." 

To  make  our  own  schools  thus  successful  we 
must  make  them  thus  popular,  and  to  make  them 
thus  popular  they  must  approximate  in  their  appur- 
tenances and  their  surroundings  to  those  of  the 
homes  of  the  best  classes  who,  under  the  most 
favorable  circumstances  would  patronize  them. 
They  have  risen  considerably  in  the  popular  esti- 
mation during  these  ten  years,  as  is  evident  by  a 
comparison  of  the  relative  attendance  then  and 
now,  with  that  of  the  private  schools,  viz.: 


14  Public  Schools. 

1859.         1869. 
Total  number  of  pupils  in  private 

schools,  -     45675      18,000 

Average    number     in     the    public 

schools,  -     SjS1^     22,838 


[The  gain  is  in  reality  more  positive  than  the  figures  show,  since 
of  the  18,000  noted  in  private  schools  in  1869  only  about  4,000  are 
attending  Academies  and  Select  Schools,  while  the  remainder  are 
in  the  various  Parochial  Schools.] 

Our  city,  from  its  location,  is  liable  to  sudden 
and  rapid  changes  of  the  weather,  and  to  severe 
storms.  Many  of  our  school  districts  cover  a  wide 
area,  and  the  pupils  are  of  necessity  exposed  to 
the  full  severity  of  our  most  rigorous  climate.  It 
frequently  happens  that  a  pleasant  morning  is 
succeeded  by  a  stormy  afternoon,  and  that  the 
attire  which  was  ample  when  the  pupils  left  their 
homes  is  most  insufficient  at  the  time  they  should 
return.  It  has  been  the  practice  in  some  of  our 
schools,  on  such  occasions,  to  omit  the  noon  inter- 
mission, and  to  close  the  afternoon  session  corres- 
pondingly earlier.  This  course  has  not  only  pre- 
vented undue  exposure  of  health,  but  has  kept  the 
attendance  more  uniform,  since  many  pupils,  when 
required  to  go  home  through  the  storm  at  noon, 
were  absent  in  the  afternoon.  There  has,  how- 
ever, been  no  concerted  action  in  this  direction, 
and  the  practice  has  not  been  uniform,  for  since 
no  two  Principals  would  exactly  agree  as  to  what 


Report  of  the  President.  15 

degree  of  inclemency  of  weather  would  justify  a 
single  session,  it  has  sometimes  happened  that 
schools  in  less  exposed  situations  have  been  dis- 
missed, while  others,  more  exposed,  have  held 
their  regular  course.  In  another  city  the  Superin- 
tendent communicates  by  means  of  the  fire  alarm 
telegraph,  an  order  to  the  several  Masters  to  dis- 
miss their  schools  whenever,  in  his  judgment,  the 
occasion  justifies  it.  Such  an  arrangement  could 
be  adopted  by  us  at  a  very  slight  expense,  for 
most  of  our  buildings  are  already  crossed  by  the 
wires,  and  only  the  simple  means  of  giving  an 
alarm  would  be  required.  I  believe  that  the 
saving  in  medical  fees  in  a  single  season,  to  say 
nothing  of  the  discomfort  of  sickness,  or  the  risk 
of  life  from  exposure,  would  more  than  equal  the 
cost  of  the  very  moderate  amount  of  additional 
apparatus  required. 

Of  perhaps  equal  service,  and  involving  no 
expense,  would  be  an  arrangement  by  which, 
through  the  various  fire-alarm  bells  in  the  different 
sections  of  the  city,  the  Superintendent  might  also 
give  notice,  on  stormy  mornings,  that  there  would 
be  no  session  of  any  of  the  schools,  and  prevent 
the  pupils  from  venturing  forth  at  all. 

We  ought,  during  the  coming  winter,  to  pur- 
chase several  school  lots  in  each  Division  of  the 


1 6  Public  Schools. 

city,  even  though  we  may  have  no  immediate 
necessity,  nor  intention,  of  building  upon  them. 
The  price  may  not  as  rapidly  advance  during  the 
next  few  years  as  it  has  for  the  past,  but  year 
by  year  property  is  becoming  more  and  more 
sub-divided  and  we  are  more  often  obliged  to 
treat  with  several  owners,  which  has  the  effect 
of  materially  increasing  the  price.  This  has 
been  our  invariable  experience,  and  we  have 
sometimes  been  obliged  to  abandon  wholly  the 
site  we  had  selected,  and  to  purchase  one  less 
desirable,  because  we  were  unwilling  to  pay  the 
extravagant  prices  which  the  several  owners, 
after  consulting  with  each  other,  have  placed  upon 
their  property. 

As  compared  with  private  purchases,  the  city  is 
always  at  a  disadvantage,  for  in  a  very  brief  time 
after  it  is  known  we  desire  to  purchase  a  school 
site,  property  in  that  locality  invariably  increases 
in  value,  in  the  estimation  of  the  owners,  from 
twenty-five  to  fifty  per  cent.  Hundreds  of  thous- 
ands of  dollars  would  be  saved  to  our  people  dur- 
ing the  next  ten  years,  and  more  desirable  locations 
would  be  secured,  if  the  Common  Council  pos- 
sessed the  power  to  condemn  property  for  school 
purposes,  and  pay  its  appraised  value.  Did  this 
power  exist  no  very  long  time  would  elapse  before 
we  should  reach  a  conclusion  of  the  vexed  ques- 


Report  of  the  President.  17 

tion  of  the  Dearborn  and  Kinzie  districts,  more  to 
our  own  satisfaction,  and  at  less  cost  than  from 
present  indications  is  likely  to  be  the  case. 

The  question  of  a  new  High  School  building 
still  remains  unsettled,  and  we  should  during  this 
year  take  some  definite  action  thereon.  Refer- 
ing  to  this  subject  the  Superintendent,  in  his  report 
for  last  year,  said : 

u  With  the  increase  of  our  Grammar  Schools, 
the  deficiency  in  accommodations  must  be  more 
pressing,  and  over-crowding  of  our  High  School 
must  result  in  turning  away  into  other  schools 
many  young  men  and  women  who  would  other- 
wise complete  their  course  with  us.  Such  losses 
must  diminish  popular  favor. 

"  The  necessity  for  rebuilding  is  enforced  by  the 
location  of  the  building.  Pupils  from  the  North 
and  South  Divisions  of  the  city  must  take  two 
lines  of  cars,  and  those  from  the  North  Division 
must  cross  two  bridges.  Were  the  school  located 
in  the  South  Division,  near  the  termini  of  the 
several  street  railways,  all  divisions  of  the  city 
would  be  about  equally  accommodated,  both  in 
matters  of  distance  and  expense. 

"  As  we  have  no  Hall  large  enough  in  which  to 
gather  all  our  teachers,  we  lose  the  great  benefits 
flowing  from  a  general  Institute  5  and  thus  all  our 


1 8  Public  Schools. 

schools  suffer  to  a  greater  or  less  extent.  Even 
for  the  meeting  of  the  Institute  in  sections,  the 
present  rooms  are  insufficient. 

"  The  importance  of  another  more  commodious 
building,  and  one  more  conveniently  located,  can 
not  be  over-estimated.  The  present  building  will 
not  be  left  useless;  it  is  now  needed  for  Grammar 
School  purposes,  and  could  be  turned  to  good 
account  in  the  Scammon  District,  where  more 
than  400  children  are  crowded  into  uncomfortable 
rented  buildings." 

In  arranging  a  public  school  Course  of  Instruc- 
tion, due  regard  must  be  paid  to  the  requirements 
of  each  of  the  two  great  classes  into  which  our 
pupils  divide:  those  who  are  intended  for  the  pro- 
fessions, and  who,  therefore,  require  the  ground- 
work of  a  collegiate  education;  and  those  who, 
from  various  causes,  never  get  beyond  the  Gram- 
mar School,  and  who,  before  finally  crossing  its 
threshold,  must  receive  all  that  the  Public  can 
provide  for  its  children  in  preparing  them  for  the 
sterner  work  of  life. 

The  former  are  sufficiently  well  provided  for  in 
our  Course  as  at  present  arranged. 

An  attempt  has  been  made  to  reach  the  neces- 
sities of  the  latter,  in  the  formation  of  the  so-called 
High  School  classes  at  the  recent  examinations. 


Report  of  the  President.  19 

To  fully  meet  the  reasonable  expectations  of  those 
who  will  patronize  these  schools,  we  shall,  I  think, 
find  it  advisable  to  enlarge  the  Course  of  Study, 
making  several  studies  optional,  but  covering  as 
much  of  the  rudiments  of  practical  mathematics, 
chemistry,  mechanics,  and  natural  history  as  can 
be  judiciously  included  in  the  Course.  Of  the 
two,  it  is  of  far  more  importance  that  the  Course 
of  Study  of  these  schools  should  be  broad  and 
generous  than  that  of  the  High  School  proper, 
since  these  will  serve  the  many,  that  the  few. 
Out  of  seventeen  thousand  children  attending  the 
Boston  Grammar  Schools  last  year,  only  five  hun- 
dred were  graduated.  We  admitted  to  our  High 
School  last  year  242,  of  whom  only  199  entered 
the  school,  and  our  graduating  class  of  this  year 
numbered  but  85,  of  the  197  pupils  of  which  it 
was  originally  composed. 

It  will  be  well,  also,  as  soon  as  practicable,  to 
furnish  separate  accommodations  for  these  classes, 
not  only  for  their  own  benefit  and  convenience, 
but  for  that  of  the  schools  in  which  they  at 
present  hold  their  sessions. 

I  commend  also  to  your  attention  the  question 
of  the  advisability  of  giving  instruction  in  sewing, 
through  the  primary  grades,  by  the  regular  teachers 
of  these  grades.  It  is  not  a  matter  of  experiment, 


2O  Public  Schools. 

for  it  has  been  tried  with  marked  success  in  New 
York,  Philadelphia,  Boston,  Providence,  and  other 
cities.  Besides  affording  a  knowledge  of  a  most 
necessary  art  to  thousands  of  children  who  other- 
wise would  never  obtain  it,  the  introduction  of 
sewing  would  be  a  most  delightful  interruption  of 
the  ordinary  routine  of  study. 

By  recent  action  of  the  Board,  drawing  has  been 
introduced  into  the  six  higher  grades  of  our 
schools.  It  will  be  found,  I  believe,  a  most  satis- 
factory experiment,  and,  as  thoroughly  in  accord- 
ance with  the  demands  of  this  most  practical  gene- 
ration, will  become  an  established  portion  of  our 
course.  I  quote  from  the  report  of  another  city 
on  this  subject: 

"  While  we  rejoice  at  the  proficiency  which  has 
been  acquired  in  music,  we  think  that  drawing  is 
worthy  of  far  more  attention  than  is  now  given  to 
it,  not  as  an  ornamental  branch  of  education,  but 
as  a  most  desirable  discipline  both  for  the  eye  and 
the  hand,  essential  to  the  best  culture  of  the  per- 
ceptive faculty,  identified  with  habits  of  pure 
taste,  and  in  many  respects  of  the  greatest  practical 
advantage,  not  only  at  the  time  of  youthful  study, 
but  through  the  whole  of  the  maturer  life.  There 
is  hardly  an  artisan  'who  ivould  not  be  a  better 
workman  if  he  kneiv  hoiv  to  handle  a  pencil ' ; 


Report  of  the  President.  21 

and  neither  a  merchant  nor  a  professional  man 
would  be  less  qualified  for  his  duties,  if  he  knew 
how  to  draw  a  plan  or  sketch  a  landscape." 

"  If  we  go  back  into  the  earlier  days  of  classical 
antiquity,  we  find  there  the  value  of  such  instruc- 
tion recognized.  Pamphilus,  the  Macedonian,  a 
proficient  in  the  higher  branches  of  learning, 
introduced  the  rule  that  drawing  should  be  taught 
to  children  through  all  the  schools  of  Greece.  In 
our  own  time,  Prussia,  with  a  population  of  fifteen 
millions,  teaches  drawing  in  all  her  schools." 

More  than  twenty  years  ago,  Mr.  Mann,  on  his 
return  from  Europe,  said:  "Almost  every  pupil, 
in  every  school,  could  draw  with  ease,  and  most 
of  them  with  no  inconsiderable  degree  of  beauty 
and  expression."  As  a  qualification  on  the  part  of 
teachers,  he  adds:  "I  never  saw  a  teacher  in  a 
German  school  make  use  of  a  ruler,  or  any  other 
mechanical  aid,  in  drawing  the  most  nice  and  com- 
plicated figures.  I  recollect  no  instance  in  which 
he  was  obliged  to  efface  a  part  of  a  line  because 
it  was  too  long."  All  who  have  witnessed 
the  rapidity  and  playful  ease  with  which  Agassiz 
illustrates  his  teachings  upon  the  blackboard, 
and  the  delight  of  his  audience  as,  with  a  dash 
of  the  chalk,  some  antediluvian  inhabitant  starts 
again  into  life,  will  readily  understand  the  advan- 
tage of  a  skillful  use  of  the  pencil  to  the  teacher. 


22  Public  Schools. 

This  study  teaches  the  pupil  to  observe  and 
analyze  the  forms  of  things,  and  also  to  cultivate 
the  taste.  It  opens  the  eye  to  nature.  It  is  in 
itself  a  language.  It  becomes  to  its  possessor 
forever  a  pleasant  resource,  and  its  pursuit  is,  in 
nearly  all  cases,  so  delightful  as  to  be  a  joy  rather 
than  a  task. 

If  there  is  any  one  branch  of  instruction,  in 
which  the  public  schools  of  the  city  of  Boston 
stand  pre-eminently  superior  to  those  of  any  other 
city,  it  is  that  of  vocal  culture.  One  needs  but  to 
see  and  hear  to  be  convinced  of  this  fact.  For 
clear  and  distinct  articulation,  for  accuracy  of 
expression,  for  uniformity  of  power  of  voice  in 
classes  naturally  widely  varying,  her  pupils  chal- 
lenge the  world.  This  result  has  been  attained 
by  a  course  of  training  covering  several  years,  and 
identical  with  that  introduced  into  our  own  schools 
this  year,  under  the  direction  of  Miss  Perkins. 
The  schools  in  which  she  has  taught  bear  marked 
testimony  of  the  efficiency  of  her  work.  I  trust 
we  may  not  be  content  to  allow  this  good  work  to 
stop  here,  but  that,  at  an  early  da)7,  we  may  have 
one  teacher  in  each  Division  of  the  city,  assigned 
to  this  special  service,  and  all  at  work  on  this 
plan. 


Report  of  the  President.  23 

During:  the  two  months  of  the  summer  vacation 

O 

there  is  a  large  class  of  children  who,  from  various 
causes,  remain  in  town,  and  who  are  most  of  the 
time  to  be  found  upon  the  street,  subject  to  all  its 
demoralizing  influences.  The  pupil  who  has 
steadily  attended  school  for  ten  months  of  the  year 
needs  this  two  months  vacation,  and  ought  not  to 
be  allowed  to  tax  his  brain  further;  but  the  class 
of  children  to  which  I  refer  are  not  noted  for  close 
attention  to  study,  nor  for  regular  attendance  at 
school,  and  I  wish  it  might  appear  feasible  to  devise, 
for  their  benefit,  some  system  of  unclassified  Vaca- 
tion Schools,  very  like  an  ordinary  Summer  country 
school,  taught  by  other  than  our  regular  teachers, 
in  much  the  same  localities,  and  under  much  the 
same  rules  as  our  Evening  Schools. 

In  the  Annual  Report  for  1867,  the  Superin- 
tendent urged  upon  the  Board  the  appointment  of 
Sub-Masters  in  our  larger  Grammar  Schools.  The 
matter  was  referred  to  a  special  committee,  of 
which  I  was  a  member.  The  committee,  after 
having  had  the  matter  under  advisement,  made  a 
report,  recommending  the  appointment  of  such 
teachers  in  certain  schools,  at  a  salary  somewhat 
higher  than  that  of  our  Head  Assistants.  Among 

O  O 

the  considerations,  which  led  them  to  make  this 
recommendation,  were  the  following: 
3 


24  Public  Schools. 

first.  —  A  very  large  portion  of  the  time  of 
the  Principals  must  of  necessity  be  devoted  to  the 
supervision  of  the  various  schools  under  their  care. 
With  a  very  few  exceptions,  each  of  our  District 
Schools  now  numbers  nearly  or  quite  1,000  pupils, 
several  have  from  1,300  to  1,600  pupils  each.  To 
conduct  the  requisite  examinations  for  promotion 
from  grade  to  grade,  to  keep  a  watchful  oversight 
of  the  discipline  and  instruction  of  each  teacher, 
and  to  give  the  requisite  time  to  parents  and 
visitors,  leave  the  Principal  but  little  time  for  the 
work  of  teaching.  As  a  result  of  this,  all  the 
teaching  is  done  by  ladies.  Excellent  as  this  is,  it 
can  not  be  denied  that  pupils  should  not  leave  our 
Grammar  Schools  without  feeling  the  influence  of 
a  thorough  male  teacher. 

Secondly.  —  During  the  occasional  absence  of 
the  Principal,  there  is  often  need  of  a  male  assist- 
ant, who  shall  take  his  place,  and  do  the  work  that 
can  not  conveniently  be  done  by  lady  assistants; 
and  during  the  presence  of  the  Principal  there  is 
need  of  assistance  upon  the  play-grounds  and 
about  the  school  premises  that  should  not  be 
required  of  lady  teachers. 

Thirdly. — The  rapid  growth  of  our  city  requires 
a  rapid  increase  of  school  accommodations.  How 
best  to  supply  the  new  schools  with  Principals  is 
a  serious  question  with  the  Board.  Had  we  Vice- 


Report  of  the  President.  25 

Principals  in  our  schools,  selections  could  easily 
be  made,  and  those  who  would  then  take  charge 
of  new  schools  would  enter  upon  their  work  with 
a  pretty  thorough  acquaintance  with  the  require- 
ments' of  our  school  system.  The  Vice-Principal- 
ship  would  serve  as  a  training  school  for  the 
Principalship,  and  through  this  course  of  training 
new  applicants  would  naturally  expect  to  pass. 

The  Superintendent,  in  his  report  of  last  year, 
again  alludes  to  the  subject,  and  gives  the  follow- 
ing additional  weighty  reasons  for  the  adoption  ,of 
this  plan: 

"  As  is  shown  elsewhere,  we  are  in  great  need 
of  school  houses  to  accommodate  the  thousands 
who  can  not  find  seats  in  school-rooms  already 
erected.  The  argument  that,  until  our  wants  in 
this  direction  are  supplied,  we  should  not  increase 
expenditures  beyond  absolute  necessities  in  other 
directions,  is  plausible.  Our  first  duty  is  to  supply 
the  uneducated  children,  now  excluded  from  school 
by  reason  of  insufficient  school  accommodations, 
with  educational  facilities.  Every  child  of  school 
age  in  the  city  should  have  a  seat  in  some  com- 
fortable school-room.  It  is  a  great  wrong  that 
any  are  excluded.  The  rapid  growth  of  the  city 
requires  large  expenditures  that  we  may  keep  pace 
with  the  demands.  No  person  can  feel  more 
deeply  than  I  do,  the  absolute  necessity  for  more 


26  Public  Schools. 

buildings  —  simple,  tasteful,  and  convenient  build- 
ings, especially  for  smaller  children  —  located  at 
suitable  distances  from  each  other,  and  around  our' 
Grammar  School  buildings,  which  do  not  need  to 
be  very  largely  increased  in  numbers  at  present. 
It  is  the  policy  of  the  Board,  and  a  wise  policy,  I 
think,  to  increase  the  number  of  Primary  Schools 
like  those  already  erected,  and  to  build  larger 
buildings  only  in  those  parts  of  the  city  which,  by 
reason  of  very  rapid  recent  growth,  are  not  prop- 
erly supplied  with  Grammar  School  privileges. 

"  This  necessity,  universally  recognized,  creates, 
as  it  appears  to  me,  the  necessity  for  the  employ- 
ment of  Sub-Masters.  With  present  plans  carried 
out,  the  work  of  our  Principals  would  be  largely 
increased.  Added  to  the  immediate  care  of  their 
own  schools,  must  come  the  supervision  of  one  or 
more  Primary  schools  each,  that  in  the  end  con- 
tribute to  the  Grammar  departments  of  the  several 
schools.  Some  such  supervision  is  essential  to  the 
unity  and  success  of  the  system.  This  admitted, 
it  will  be  seen  that  more  time  must  be  given  the 
Principal  for  supervisory  work,  and  by  so  much 
will  his  time  for  instruction  be  diminished.  Either 
we  must  lose  the  influence  of  the  male  mind  over 
the  higher  classes  of  our  Grammar  schools,  or 
additional  male  help  must  be  employed.  I  do  not 
depreciate  the  female  teacher's  work,  when  I  ask 


Report  of  the  President.  27 

that  the  male  teacher  supplement  it,  any  more 
than  I  depreciate  man's  work,  when  I  say  that  it  is 
imperfect  without  woman's  aid.  My  son  needs  the 
influence  of  the  female  teacher,  as  my  daughter 
needs  that  of  the  male  teacher. 

"  I  have  said  that  our  first  duty  is  to  make  full 
provision  for  the  accommodation  of  the  many  who 
are  crowded  out  of  our  schools;,  but  do  we  owe 
nothing  to  those  thousands  that  are  received  ?  Is 
not  our  duty  to  those  in  school  at  least  equal  to 
what  we  owe  those  without?  If  the  good  of  the 
schools  demands  it,  is  it  wise  to  refuse  a  slight 
additional  expenditure  which  would  undoubtedly 
lead  to  the  adoption  of  a  policy  which  will  prove  a 
saving  in  expense?  I  do  not  favor  decrease  of 
expenditures  if  thereby  is  to  come  decrease  of  effi- 
ciency. It  is  not  what  schools  cost,  but  what  they 
are  worth  to  the  people,  that  should  form  our  basis 
of  action.  And  I  dismiss  the  subject  with  referring 
to  the  report  of  the  Special  Committee  above  given, 
as  embodying  the  strongest  reasons  for  adopting 
the  policy  recommended,  and  by  saying  that  I  do 
not  believe  we  can  extend  our  Primary  District 
System  without  injury,  unless  male  help  be  given 
our  Principals." 

For  reasons  growing  out  of  the  state  of  our 
finances,  no  definite  action  was  taken  upon  this 


28  Public  Schools. 

matter.  But  it  seems  to  me  that  the  financial 
argument  is  as  strong  as  any  other  in  its  favor. 
For  no  matter  what  has  been  the  previous  expe- 
rience of  those  whom  we  have  put  in  charge  of 
our  schools  as  Principals,  the  greater  part  of  the 
first  term  has  invariably  elapsed  before  the  new 
man  has  become  acquainted  with  his  duties,  and 
the  characteristics  and  requirements  of  our  system. 
If  we  were  to  appoint  Sub-Principals  in  our 
schools  numbering  one  thousand  pupils,  we  should 
then  have  a  few  male  teachers  occupying  this  sub- 
ordinate position  for  a  short  time,  and  prepared  at 
any  moment  for  advancement  to  Principalship  on 
a  vacancy  occurring,  and  with  scarcely  the  proba- 
bility of  any  friction,  especially  if,  as  might  easily 
be  arranged,  the  new  Principal  were  to  have  a  few 
weeks'  experience  under  the  one  whom  he  was 
appointed  to  succeed.  Such  a  policy  would  in- 
crease our  expenses  less  than  one-quarter  of  one  per 
cent;  what  it  would  save,  those  of  you  who,  since 
your  connection  with  the  Board,  have  given  the 
matter  of  the  appointment  of  teachers  much  atten- 
tion, do  not  need  to  be  told. 

I  have  a  deep  interest  also  in  the  establishment 
of  a  Public  School  Library,  with  its  Reading- 
Rooms,  Art  Galleries,  Cabinets  of  Natural  History, 
and  system  of  Public  Lectures.  In  St.  Louis, 


Report  of  the  President.  29 

under  the  management  of  the  late  City  Superin- 
tendent, Hon.  Ira  Divoll,  a  remarkable  success  has 
been  achieved.  During  the  first  year,  the  Asso- " 
ciation  acquired  a  membership  of  over  eighteen 
hundred  persons,  with  about  ten  thousand  volumes, 
and  a  circulation  of  over  thirty  thousand  volumes, 
the  issues  sometimes  amounting  to  five  hundred 
volumes  per  day.  It  receives  no  support  from 
any  public  fund,  but  has  been  built  up  solely  by 
membership  fees,  small  donations,  the  proceeds 
of  lectures,  etc.  It  enjoys  a  steadily-increasing 
patronage,  and  its  influence  in  elevating  the 
standard  and  widening  the  scope  of  popular  edu- 
cation is  admitted  on  all  hands. 

No  one  question  in  connection  with  school 
management  has  been  so  often  brought  to  our 
attention  in  one  form  or  another  during  the  past 
year  or  two  as  the  abolition  of  corporal  punish- 
ment. Repeated  and  persistent  efforts  have  been 
made  for  its  prohibition  by  standing  rule  of  this 
Board.  Through  the  press,  a  few  injudicious 
teachers  have  been  held  up  to  the  people  as  a 
type  of  all,  and  their  few  unfortunate  mistakes  in 
discipline,  warped  and  magnified  beyond  all  sem- 
blance of  truth,  have  been  made  to  appear  to  be 
characteristic  of  the  whole,  till  there  is  danger  that 
the  sound  common  sense  and  discreet  judgment  of 


30  Public  Schools. 

the  community  may  be  so  distorted  as  to  induce  it 
to  make  demands  which,  if  yielded  to,  must  work 
incalculable  and  lasting  injury  to  our  schools. 

This  agitation  has  not  been  confined  to  our  own 
locality.  In  support  of  the  conclusion  to  which 
this  Board  has  always  arrived,  as  well  as  showing 
the  extraordinary  unity  of  opinion  which  prevails 
on  this  subject  among  those  who  should  be  best 
qualified  to  decide  the  question,  I  invite  your  atten- 
tion to  the  following  extracts  from  the  reports  of 
the  various  school  committees  and  school  officers 
in  different  parts  of  the  country,  who  have  had 
the  matter  under  discussion  sufficiently  to  give  it  a  , 
place  in  their  reports: 

"  Corporal  punishment  is  more  infrequent  than 
in  former  times,  and  is  generally  becoming  less 
and  less  a  means  of  enforcing  discipline  j  other 
and  milder  corrections  are  used."  —  St.  Louis 
Report. 

"  While  its  recognition  as  an  ultimate  practical 
necessity  may  for  a  time  be  deemed  expedient, 
its  exercise  in  any  case  not  absolutely  demanding 
such  a  resort  will  be  strongly  discountenanced  by 
the  Board  and  by  this  Department." — New  York 
Report. 

"  A  willful  persistence  in  wrong  doing  must  be 
met  with  proper  punishment.  When  society  shall 
have  become  so  far  perfected  in  knowledge,  virtue 


Report  of  the  President.  31 

and  religion  as  to  warrant  the  annulling  of  its 
penal  code,  then,  and  not  until  then,  will  it  be  safe 
to  ignore  the  idea  of  corporal  punishment  in  the 
family  and  school." — Brooklyn  Committee. 

"  It  is  satisfactory  to  know  that  throughout  the 
schools  of  the  State,  the  infliction  of  corporal 
punishment  is  the  exception  and  not  the  general 
rule,  and  that  it  is  the  study  of  intelligent  teachers 
to  reduce  it  to  the  lowest  possible  minimum. 
Many  schools,  indeed,  are  governed  for  months 
in  succession  without  any  resort  to  such  punish- 
ment; but  this  is  only  rendered  possible  by  the 
reserved  right  of  the  teacher  to  inflict  it  if 
necessary" —  California  Report. 

"  A  school  that  is  not  well  and  wisely  governed 
soon  becomes  a  nuisance  instead  of  a  blessing. 
One  of  the  first  lessons,  as  well  as  the  last,  to  be 
impressively  taught  is  obedience  to  law,  and 
respect  for  authority.  All  other  teaching,  without 
this,  is  of  little  worth;  and  authority  without 
power  to  enforce  its  behest,  and  law  without 
adequate  penalties,  are  the  merest  nullities. 

"  In  an  age  like  the  present,  it  is  especially  im- 
portant that  the  foundations  of  truth  and  virtue  be 
laid  in  early  youth,  and  that  the  materials  be  of 
the  firmest  and  most  substantial  nature.  Under 
the  ever  revered  name  of  liberty,  there  is  now 
sought  an  unlimited  freedom  for  every  one  to  act 


32  Public  Schools. 

as  he  pleases,  without  let  or  hindrance.  This 
lawless  spirit  derives  great  encouragement  and 
support  from  a  kind  of  morbid  sentimentalism  or 
mistaken  misanthropy,  that  would  soften  and  miti- 
gate all  human  penalties  that  they  would  cease 
to  be  a  terror  to  evil  doers.  The  fruits  of  these 
Utopian  vagaries  are  already  manifest  in  the  rapid 
increase  of  crime,  and  in  the  recklessness  with 
which  all  moral  obligations  are  violated. 

"  If  our  schools  are  to  be  preserved  in  their 
highest  efficiency,  they  must  be  kept  in  the  most 
perfect  discipline.  To  direct  and  control  the 
hearts  and  minds  of  the  young,  to  secure  prompt 
and  cheerful  obedience  to  every  just  command, 
by  the  noblest  and  most  elevated  motives,  is  one 
of  the  rarest  and  most  valued  gifts.  And  when 
this  can  not  be  accomplished  by  moral  force 
alone,  other  agencies  should  be  em-ployed.  The 
main  objection  to  the  infliction  of  bodily  pain, 
under  any  circumstances,  grows  out  of  the  fact 
that  the  authority  to  do  this  has  sometimes  been 
abused.  This  is  also  true  of  the  most  valued  gifts 
and  blessings  ever  conferred  on  man.  There  is 
not  one  that  has  not  been  perverted  from  its 
original  design. 

"  One  of  the  most  obvious  and  inevitable  results 
of  taking  away  this  power  from  teachers  would  be 
to  largely  increase  the  numbers  of  idlers  and 


Report  of   the  President.  33 

vagrants  that  now  roam  our  streets.  It  would  be 
virtually  offering  a  premium  for  disobedience. 
There  is  many  a  wayward  youth  now  kept  in 
submission  principally  by  fear  of  the  rod.  If  this 
were  taken  away  they  would  resist  the  teacher's 
authority,  for  the  express  purpose  of  being  sent 
out  where  they  might  range  at  large  without 
check  or  control." — Providence  Report. 

"A  resort  to  measures  of  severity  sometimes 
becomes  absolutely  necessary,  and  though  corporal 
punishment  should  be  adopted  only  when  other 
means  have  been  persistently  tried  and  have  failed, 
yet  when,  in  the  deliberate  judgment  of  the 
teacher,  it  is  deemed  necessary,  there  should  be 
no  shrinking  from  the  duty,  however  painful  it 
may  be.  And  when  the  punishment  is  properly 
administered  from  right  motives,  and  from  a  good 
end,  it  is  fully  recognized  by  the  law  of  the  land, 
as  well  as  by  the  higher  law,  as  a  legitimate  and 
justifiable  mode  of  discipline,  the  teacher  being 
for  the  time  in  loco  parentis,  and  having,  in  this 
respect,  the  same  powers  and  responsibilities  as 
parents. 

"  In  our  opinion,  the  right  and  the  power  so  to 
punish  should  still  be  vested  in  the  teacher,  to 
be  exercised  when  they  deem  it  absolutely  neces- 
sary for  the  good  discipline  of  their  schools.  Then 
the  mere  consciousness  on  the  part  of  the  teacher 


34  Public  Schools. 

that  he  is  possessed  of  this  power,  and  the  knowl- 
edge on  the  part  of  the  pupils  that  it  is  so  possessed 
and  may  be  exercised,  will,  in  a  large  proportion 
of  cases,  answer  every  purpose,  without  the  actual 
application  of  it.  An  abuse  of  this  power  seldom 
occurs  in  our  schools,  much  less  frequently,  we 
believe,  than  in  the  family  discipline  to  which 
the  pupils  are  subject  at  home. 

"It  is  sometimes  urged  that  exclusion  from 
school  of  disorderly  pupils  may  be  adopted  as  a 
substitute  for  corporal  punishment.  We  believe 
the  substitute  proposed  can  not  be  legally  adopted 
as  a  rule,  and  that  so  long  as  corporal  punishment 
is  recognized  by  law,  and  sanctioned  by  the  civil 
courts  as  legal  and  proper,  it  is  questionable 
whether  a  committee  would  be  justified  in  resort- 
ing to  this  extreme  measure  of  depriving  children 
of  the  advantages  of  education  until,  as  the  only 
remaining  means  and  hope  of  reform  within  the 
school,  this,  by  corporal  punishment,  had  also  first 
been  tried  and  proved  a  failure. 

"Other  substitutes  are  sometimes  adopted,  which 
are  vastly  more  mischievous  in  their  effects  than 
any  of  the  ordinary  corporal  chastisements  that  are 
inflicted.  Of  these  are  morose  and  repulsive  looks 
and  treatment,  habitual  petulance  and  scolding, 
and  above  all,  the  holding  up  of  pupils  before  the 
school  as  objects  of  ridicule  and  sarcasm.  All 


Repot  t  of  the  President.  35 

these  modes  of  discipline,  by  frequent  repetition, 
defeat  their  own  purpose,  while  their  tendency 
is  to  inflict  a  lasting  injury  upon  the  characters 
and  tempers  of  the  children,  with  a  corresponding 
reaction  upon  the  teachers  themselves." — Spring- 
field (Mass?)  Committee. 

"  In  recommending  that  the  Board  continue  in 
the  future,  as  in  the  past,  to  justify  the  occasional 
and  judicious  use  of  corporal  punishment  in  its 
schools,  duty  "demands  that  we  should  give  our 
reasons  for  the  course  we  recommend. 

"  Recognizing  corporal  punishment  as  abstractly 
an  evil,  we  have  earnestly  desired  that  it  might 
with  consistency  and  safety  be  abolished;  but 
we  have  reluctantly  been  forced  to  the  decision 
that  the  greatest  good  to  the  greatest  number 
demands  that  the  Board  should  continue  to  author- 
ize the  exercise  of  it,  under  proper  restrictions, 
when  necessary  to  enforce  obedience  and  to  main- 
tain discipline.  If  we  abolish  corporal  punishment 
entirely  from  our  schools,  we  take  from  our  teach- 
ers the  power  to  enforce  obedience.  They  may 
counsel  and  reason,  beseech  and  implore;  they 
may  employ  every  minor  penalty;  but  when  these 
have  failed,  there  is  no  power  to  command  obedi- 
ence, or  to  justify  the  broken  law  when  it  is  defied, 
and  make  it  respected  by  the  offender,  and  honor- 
able in  the  estimation  of  the  school. 


36  Public  Schools. 

"  Coming,  as  the  pupils  do,  from  widely  different 
home  influences,  with  various  tempers  and  disposi- 
tions, it  is  essential  that  the  teacher  should  use 
those  means  to  govern  each  child  which  a  careful 
study  of  its  character  has  led  him  to  believe  to  be 
best.  To  do  this  successfully  it  is  necessary  to 
leave  all  proper  and  legal  means  of  restraint  and 
government  to  the  discretion  of  the  instructor.  If 
he  unfortunately  fail  in  government,  or  exceed 
either  his  rights  or  his  duty,  that  is  the  weakness 
of  the  individual,  and  not  of  a  system  of  disci- 
pline^ 'which,  under  jtidicious  and  qualified 
instructors  has  been,  and  'would  be.,  perfectly  suc- 
cessful. 

"  The  purpose  of  the  State  in  assuming  the 
charge  of  the  education  of  its  children,  is  that  they 
may  all  be  so  trained  as  to  become  good  and  useful 
citizens.  The  first  duty  of  a  good  citizen  is  to 
yield  cheerful  obedience  to  the  powers  that  be. 
If  a  boy  is  persistently  profane,  vicious  or  untruth- 
ful, is  a  teacher  doing  his  duty  who  does  not  use 
every  instrumentality  which  the  law  justifies,  to 
command  obedience  and  break  up  wicked  and 
degrading  practices?  Corporal  punishment  is  one 
of  these  instrumentalities,  sanctioned  by  the  best 
authorities,  and  justified  by  the  decisions  of  the 
courts.  If  we  withhold  from  teachers  this  last 
resort,  just  and  legal  as  it  is,  we  not  only  require 


Report  of  the  President.  37 

them  to  do  what  we  deny  them  the  most  efficient 
means  of  doing  in  extreme  cases,  and  compel  them 
'  to  make  bricks  without  straw,'  but  we  practically 
say  to  the  bad  pupils,  '  Go  on  in  your  violation  of 
the  regulations,  in  your  wicked  practices,  we  do  not 
choose  to  have  the  proper,  legal  and  necessary 
means  used  to  prevent  such  conduct,  and  to  deter 
you  from  becoming  immoral  men  and  unworthy 
citizens.' 

"//  is  -patent  to  the  experience  of  all  familiar 
with  ottr  schools,  that  the  simple  fact  that  pupils 
know  that  this  power  can  be  exercised,  very 
largely  prevents  the  necessity  of  punishment. 
The  wholesome  fear  of  the  law  and  its  penalties 
keeps  in  restraint  a  certain  class  in  every  com- 
munity who  have  not  sufficient  principle  to  govern 
themselves.  This  influence  is  as  necessary  in  the 
school-room  as  elsewhere,  not  only  as  a  check 
upon  the  positively  bad,  but  upon  that  large  class 
who,  in  the  formation  of  character,  need  something 
more  than  the  teacher's  personal  influence  to 
restrain  them  from  acts  of  impropriety  and  dis- 
obedience. In  this  respect  the  influence  of  corpo- 
ral punishment  is  only  good,  and  its  benefits  are  so 
salutary  that  they  far  overbalance  any  evil  effects 
which  may  sometimes  arise  from  its  improper  use 
by  indiscreet,  unworthy  and  incompetent  teachers. 

"The    alternative    which    is    presented    is    this: 


38  Public  Schools. 

either  to  retain  the  pupil  in  school,  with  the  fear- 
ful effect  of  his  influence,  as  one  who  has  obtained 
a  complete  victory  over  law  and  right,  associated 
with  the  daily  miasma  of  his  unchecked  evil 
practices,  or  to  expel  him  from  school,  and  send 
him  into  the  streets  to  grow  up  in  ignorance  and 
vice.  It  would  be  most  dangerous  to  the  public 
welfare,  as  well  as  that  of  the  unruly  pupil,  if, 
just  at  the  time  when  he  had  started  on  the  wrong 
course,  and  most  needed  all  the  restraining  and 
reclaiming  influences  which  could  be  thrown 
around  him,  he  should  be  left,  in  defiance  of 
authority  and  right,  to  take  a  course  dictated  only 
by  inexperienced  and  perverse  judgment,  when, 
under  a  firm,  steady  hand,  knowing  that  he  must 
yield  or  be  punished,  he  might  be  saved  from 
growing  up  a  pest  of  society.  Yet  this  is  unques- 
tionably the  only  way  which  is  open  to  the  Board 
if  corporal  punishment  is  abolished.  There  would 
be,  however,  in  the  practical  operation  of  such  a 
plan,  results  so  startling  that  the  Board  may  well 
pause  before  them,  and  ask  if  any  evils  -which 
have  existed  in  the  past,  or  may  exist  in  the 
future,  can  bear  any  comparison  'with  those 
which  crowd  around  the  adoption  of  such  a 
measure. 

"  If  others  are  so  thoughtless  or  so  shortsighted 
as  to  allow  resentment  or  indignation  to  originate 


Report  of  the  President.  39 

principles  of  action,  and  to  claim,  because  the  right 
to  use  corporal  punishment  is  sometimes  abused  by 
unworthy  teachers,  it  can  have  no  advantages  and 
should  be  abolished,  it  is  most  certainly  the  duty 
of  this  Board,  standing  as  the  independent  arbitra- 
tor of  all  interests,  not  hastily  and  inconsiderately 
to  jump  at  the  same  conclusion,  but  to  move 
judiciously  and  cautiously,  coming  to  this  decision 
only  when  it  shall  have  become  convinced  that  the 
use  of  corporal  punishment  cannot  be  separated 
from  its  abuse,  so  as  to  make  it  clear  that  the 
benefits  of  the  former  decidedly  outweigh  the  evils 
resulting  from  the  latter. 

"  If  corporal  punishment  were  prohibited,  that 
prohibition  would  be  no  more  restraint  upon  an 
unsuitable  person  than  exists  under  the  present 
rule.  Disgrace,  loss  of  situation,  and  the  penalties 
of  the  law  have  been  no  check  heretofore  on  such 
teachers,  and  no  greater  deterring  influence  can  be 
exerted  in  any  case.  Hundreds  of  teachers  in  our 
schools  have  used  corporal  punishment  wisely, 
judiciously,  and  with  good  results,  for  every  one 
who  has  been  guilty  of  outrage  and  abuse.  Can 
any  other  field  of  duty  show  results  more  creditable 
to  those  engaged  in  it,  or  to  the  principles  upon 
which  it  is  conducted?  The  right  of  the  father 
to  chastise  his  child  has  been  abused.  If  abuse, 
then,  in  a  few  exceptional  cases  is  a  justification, 

4 


40  Public  Schools. 

the  law  ought  to  take  from  all  parents  this  means 
of  controlling  their  children. 

"  We  find  a  strong  reason  for  permitting  cor- 
poral punishment  in  the  well  known  fact  that 
teachers,  with  great,  if  not  perfect  unanimity, 
claim  that  it  is  necessary  to  retain  it  in  order  to 
secure  success  and  efficiency  in  education.  We 
have  more  faith  in  the  judgment  of  good  practical 
teachers  than  in  those  who  deal  only  in  theories. 

"  It  is  urged  that  corporal  punishment  is  degrad- 
ing and  barbarous.  It  is  one  of  the  objects  of  this 
kind  of  punishment  to  make  a  refractory  pupil  feel 
dishonored  and  disgraced,  and  that,  through  such 
an  appeal  to  his  feelings,  he  may  learn  that  the 
way  of  the  transgressor  is  hard,  and  not  an  easy, 
pleasant  path  to  travel.  On  the  part  of  the  teacher, 
when  properly  performed,  it  is  the  dignified  act  of 
administering  justice,  and  as  worthy  of  respect  as 
that  of  the  judge  who  passes  sentence,  the  warden 
who  confines,  or  the  sheriff  who  executes  a  prisoner. 
In  either  case  it  does  not  require  a  mind  of  very 
large  compass  to  look  beyond  the  act  to  the  great 
public  good  it  is  intended  to  serve.  We  may  say 
further,  that  if  the  disuse  of  it  encourages  dis- 
obedience and  defiance  of  law,  vicious  and  degrad- 
ing habits,  idleness  and  falsehood  in  school,  drives 
children  into  the  streets,  and  into  the  company  of 
those  twin  sisters,  ignorance  and  vice,  and  tends  to 


Report  of  the  President.  41 

fill  the  penal  institutions  of  the  city,  it  is  more 
barbarous  not  to  use  such  punishment  than  to 
exercise  it.  If  we  desire  to  reap  the  whirlwind, 
there  is  no  surer  way  than  to  sow  the  wind.  Un- 
governed,  unrestrained,  willful  boys  become  turbu- 
lent, violent  and  vicious  men.  It  is  the  fitful,  rest- 
less wind  to-day,  but  in  the  darker  hour  of  the 
morrow  it  is  the  devastating  whirlwind. 

"  There  would  be  no  good  purpose  served  by 
concealing  the  fact  that  the  prejudice  which  exists 
in  regard  to  corporal  punishment  is  largely  due  to 
its  indiscriminate,  unwise  and  excessive  use  by 
some  teachers.  Nothing  looks  more  suspicious 
than  the  constant  recurrence  of  such  reasons  for 
corporal  punishment  as  impertinence,  inattention, 
disorder,  restlessness,  disturbance,  playing,  tardi- 
ness, not  one  of  which,  unless  aggravated  in  its 
character  is  worthy  of  it,  but  should  be  met  by 
some  other  form  of  punishment.  The  kind,  sym- 
pathetic teacher  rarely  reports  impertinence  as  a 
cause  for  punishment,  for  it  is  generally  the  reflec- 
tion in  the  pupil  of  anger,  undeserved  reproof,  or 
bitter  sarcasm  on  the  part  of  the  teacher.  Inatten- 
tion and  restlessness  too  often  originate  in  the 
teacher's  lack  of  ability  to  make  the  studies  inter- 
esting; disorder,  disturbance,  playing,  in  a  want  of 
that  quiet  power  which  makes  itself  constantly  felt 
as  a  check  upon  the  pupils;  or,  it  may  be,  in  a 


42  Public  Schools. 

most  foolish  waste  of  power  by  attempting  to 
enforce  too  strict  discipline.  This  latter  failing 
lies  at  the  door  of  those  who  think  a  school  is  a 
failure  unless  you  can  hear  a  pin  drop,  and  that  it 
is  a  heinous  offence  for  a  child  to  take  an  easy 
position  at  its  desk. 

"We  know  that  the  vast  majority  of  our  teachers 
are  doing  their  work  with  marked  success,  wisely, 
considerately,  and  kindly.  A  proper  regard  for 
the  rights  of  the  children  in  our  schools,  for  the 
feelings  of  parents,  and  the  highest  interests  of  our 
whole  system  of  public  instruction,  demands  that 
the  Board  unflinchingly  administer  its  sure  and 
certain  condemnation  upon  every  teacher  who, 
instigated  by  passion,  prejudice  or  cruelty,  violates 
the  sacred  trust  reposed  in  him. 

"  Feeling  that  corporal  punishment  is  a  valuable 
and  necessary  auxiliary  in  the  administration  of 
discipline  in  our  schools,  that  its  abolishment 
'would  bring  great  and  lamentable  evils  upon 
them  and  upon  the  public  welfare,  and  that  it  can 
be  judiciously  controlled,  we  recommend  that  the 
right  to  use  it  be  retained  by  the  teachers,  and  its 
exercise  be  left  to  their  discretion  under  the  exist- 
ing regulations." — Boston  Special  Committee. 

"  The  task  of  defending  the  continued  employ- 
ment of  corporal  punishment  in  our  public  schools, 


Report  of  the  President.  43 

is,  for  various  reasons,  a  very  ungrateful  one,  and 
exposes  those  who  undertake  it  to  much  miscon- 
ception. The  ignorance  of  the  general  public  in 
regard  to  the  duties  of  public  school  teachers  is 
extreme;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  perfectly 
easy  to  excite  the  feelings  of  that  large  class  in  the 
community  who  are  governed  by  their  feelings,  and 
not  by  their  reason.  Corporal  punishment  is  in  its 
nature  an  ugly  necessity;  so  is  the  incarceration  of 
adult  offenders  in  jails  and  state  prisons;  so  are 
many  other  incidents  of  an  imperfect  state  of 
society.  No  one  advocates  its  continuance  as  a 
good  in  itself;  few  consider  it  a  permanent  and 
necessary  element  in  our  school  system.  While 
nothing  in  the  experience  of  the  past  year  has  led 
your  Committee  to  change  their  opinion,  that  its 
retention  is  still  a  necessity  incident  to  the  present 
imperfections  of  that  system,  they  are,  in  common 
with  all  other  friends  of  educational  progress, 
desirous  of  seeing  it  now  reduced  to  a  minimum, 
and  at  some  future  time  entirely  abolished.  They 
can  not  think,  however,  that  any  measure  which 
looks  to  its  immediate  discontinuance  without 
those  great  and  important  changes  and  improve- 
ments in  our  schools,  which  will  alone  do-  away 
with  its  necessity,  and  which  time  alone  can  bring, 
is  either  wise,  consistent,  or  safe;  and  they  would 
especially  deprecate  the  mischievous  effects  on 


44  Public  Schools. 

their  good  order  and  progress,  which  the  persistent 
agitation  of  the  subject  for  the  past  twelve  months 
has  had  upon  the  condition  of  the  schools. 

"  Your  Committee  are  of  opinion  that  the  present 
regulations  in  regard  to  corporal  punishment  are 
entirely  sufficient,  and  that  the  -persistent  agita- 
tion of  the  subject,  from  whatever  motives  it 
originates,  is  mischievous  to  the  good  order  and 
discipline  of  the  schools.  It  is  mischievous  in 
more  than  one  way.  It  not  only  tends  to  produce 
a  feeling  of  insubordination  in  the  minds  of  the 
pupils,  so  that  it  is  the  testimony  of  teachers  of 
the  longest  experience,  that  the  schools  have 
never  been  more  difficult  to  govern  than  since 
the  commencement  of  the  agitation;  but,  by  rais- 
ing a  false  issue  on  a  subordinate  point,  it  tends  to 
retard,  if  not  wholly  prevent,  those  much-needed 
and  far  more  important  improvements  in  other 
directions,  which  have  been  alluded  to. 

"Of  the  arguments  employed  by  the  advocates  for 
entire  abolition  of  corporal  punishment,  some  are 
almost  beneath  criticism,  while  others  are  refuted 
by  stubborn  facts.  In  opposition  to  the  infliction 
of  pain  by  the  teacher,  the  example  of  the  surgeon 
is  adduced,  who  strives  by  every  means  to  avoid 
or  to  alleviate  it;  but  surely  he  would  not  do  so 
if  the  pain  were  a  needful  and  essential  part  of  the 
cure.  We  do  not  incarcerate  adult  criminals 


Report  of  the  President.  45 

simply  for  the  sake  of  incarcerating  them,  but  for 
the  promotion  of  the  welfare  and  good  order  of 
society,  and  for  the  reformation  —  not  the  suffering 

-  of  the  criminal  himself.     Corporal  punishment 
can  only  be  defended,  in  the  view  of  your  Com- 
mittee, upon  similar  grounds  as  a  police  regulation, 
incident  to  the  imperfections  of  society  and  of  the 
present  school  system,  and  to  be  diminished,  and 
finally   disappear,    as   that    system    gradually    im- 
proves; precisely  as  it  is  to  be  hoped  that  the  time 
will  come  when  capital  punishment  and  crowded 
State    prisons   will    no    longer  be   needed  for  the 
safety  of  society  at  large. 

"  In  the  case  of  the  German  schools,  so  much 
relied  on  by  the  advocates  of  the  entire  abolition 
of  corporal  punishment  by  regulations,  there  is 
direct  and  unimpeachable  evidence  to  prove  that 
such  regulations  have  aggravated  the  very  mischief 
that  they  were  intended  to  cure,  and  that,  while 
careful  and  regulated  punishment  is  abolished^ 
brutal,  ill-regulated,  passionate,  and  dangerous 
punishments  still  prevail.*  No  mere  regulation 

*  "  '  If  in  an  American  school,'  says  a  competent  witness,  who  has 
resided  in  Germany,  and  paid  great  attention  to  the  subject,  the  Rev. 
William   L.   Gage,   '  with  our  newspapers  Argus-eyed  to   see   every 
thing  and  report  it  to  the  world,  the  violence  which  takes  place   in  a 
German  school  should  occur,  it  would  create  such  deep  feeling  in  the 
community,  that  nothing  short  of  the  removal  of  teachers  would  quiet 
it.     Of  course,  before  the  visitor  this  violence  is  not  apparent.     Yet  I 
have  seen  a  boy  struck  with  a  clenched  fist  on  the  side  of  the   head 
with  benumbing  force;  and  I  know  that  the  teachers  kick  the  boys  and 


46  Public  Schools. 

will  suffice  to  control  a  passionate  or  tyrannical 
teacher;  the  only  safeguard  is  the  employment  of 
teachers  to  whose  judgment  and  good  temper  the 
task  of  discipline  can  be  safely  intrusted,  and  to 
place  them  under  circumstances  where  good  disci- 
pline by  mild  methods  can  reasonably  be  expected. 
"  It  has  been  argued,  that  the  abuse  of  corporal 
punishment  in  our  public  schools  has  come  to  be 
so  great  as  to  furnish  a  valid  reason  for  abolishing 
it  altogether.  The  argument  is  apt  to  come  from 
persons  who,  remembering  the  state  of  school 
discipline  a  quarter  or  a  half  a  century  ago,  and 
rarely  visiting  them  now,  suppose  the  same  condi- 
tion of  things  existing  as  in  the  days  of  their  own 
boyhood.  That,  in  many  quarters,  there  is  still  far 
too  much  corporal  punishment,  that  it  is  inflicted 
for  trifling  offences  and  on  improper  occasions,  that 
it  is  often  the  resort  of  teachers  too  lazy  or  too  ill- 
tempered  to  learn  how  to  govern  in  better  ways, 
your  Committee  are  not  disposed  to  deny.  But  it 
is  equally  true  that  a  steady  progress  has  been 
made,  and  is  making,  in  the  amelioration  of  the 

strike  the  head  and  snap  the  nose  and  pinch  the  back  of  the  neck  in  a 
brutal  manner.  If  German  schools  are  of  such  superior  excellence,  it 
is  gained,  not  by  the  help,  but  in  spite,  of  a  system  of  such  gross  and 
injurious  punishments  as  are  not  only  hurtful  to  the  health,  but  to  the 
character  of  pupils  and  teachers.  Well-considered,  faithful  £unishings 
on  the  hand  are  not  in  vogue  here :  only  passionate  outbreaks  of 
violence,  which  generally  accomplish  their  object  by  blows  on  the  side 
of  the  head.' " 


Report  of  the  President.  47 

discipline  of  our  public  schools;  and  that  the 
teachers  most  strenuous  for  the  retention  of  the 
power  to  inflict  punishment  are  precisely  those  who 
find  least  occasion  for  its  use.  The  possession  of  the 
power  obviates  the  necessity  for  its  employment. 
Its  abuse  must  be  guarded  against  by  the  vigilance 
of  parents,  committees,  and  superintendents;  and, 
above  all,  by  promoting  the  professional  education 
of  teachers,  and  making  the  calling  attractive  to  a 
superior  class  of  minds.  Under  any  and  all  cir- 
cumstances, however,  your  Committee  believe  that 
the  maintenance  of  authority  is  absolutely  neces- 
sary to  the  success  of  a  school;  and  that,  to  this 
end,  in  the  schools,  as  at  present  organized,  resort 
must  sometimes  be  had  to  a  short,  sharp,  and 
decisive,  but  not  cruel,  mode  of  punishment." — 
Cambridge  Report. 

"  The  public  schools  of  Massachusetts  constitute 
the  chief  excellence  of  her  power.  To  them  she 
is  largely  indebted  for  her  position  among  the 
States,  and  for  her  salutary  influence  at  home  and 
abroad.  Whatever  injures  them  injures  her; 
whatever  benefits  them  is  a  public  benefit.  In 
these  schools  the  rising  generation  are  trained  for 
the  duties  of  life.  In  them  they  learn  to  think,  in 
connection  with  acquiring  useful  knowledge,  and 
their  learning,  thus  obtained,  enters  largely  into  the 
formation  of  their  characters.  The  highest  object 


48  Public  Schools. 

» 
of  these  schools  is  not  instruction   in  the  several 

branches  taught  from  the  text-books  prescribed, 
however  important  that  object  may  be.  Their 
highest  object  is  the  education  of  the  manners,  the 
principles  and  the  conscience  in  the  formation  of  a 
noble  character,  fitted  to  ornament  and  bless 
society.  It  is  to  prepare  the  pupils  to  act  well 
their  parts  in  all  the  relations  of  life.  It  is  to  help 
make  them  good  sons  and  daughters,  good  brothers 
and  sisters,  good  fathers  and  mothers,  and  good 
citizens.  It  is,  in  connection  with  other  means,  to 
form  and  strengthen  habits  of  strict  and  ready 
obedience  to  proper  authority,  rationally  enforced, 
to  reasonable  government,  to  the  laws  of  the  land, 
and  the  laws  of  God.  A  person  is  not  fitted  to 
take  part  in  governing  who  has  not  learned  to  sub- 
mit to  rational  government;  loyalty,  therefore,  is 
an  important  part  of  education,  and  should  be 
taught  in  our  public  schools.  The  pupils  in  these 
schools  should  be  rationally  restrained  from  the 
wrong  as  well  as  encouraged  in  the  right.  Without 
such  restraint,  like  Eli's  sons,  they  will  bring  ruin 
upon  themselves  and  injury  upon  those  with  whom 
they  are  associated. 

"  Can  these  important  objects  be  accomplished  in 
all  our  public  schools,  if  their  teachers  are  forbid- 
den the  use  of  corporal  punishment,  by  legal 
enactment?  Would  a  law  declaring  that  no  teacher 


Report  of  the  President.  49 

should  inflict  physical  pain  upon  a  pupil,  in  en- 
forcing his  rules,  promote  the  cause  of  education 
and  render  the  department  of  teaching  more  effi- 
cient for  good?  This  question  was  very  differently 
answered  by  the  two  parties  who  appeared  before 
the  Committee  in  the  several  hearings  given  upon 
the  subject  under  consideration.  From  one  party 
we  had  an  emphatic  Yes,  and  from  the  other  an 
emphatic  No.  The  former  declared  corporal  pun- 
ishment in  our  schools  an  unnecessary  evil,  (  a 
relic  of  barbarism,'  which  should  be  rendered 
impossible  by  law.  They  testified  their  abhorrence 
of  the  practice  of  inflicting  physical  pain  upon 
pupils  in  the  enforcement  of  the  rules  of  school, 
declaring  that  teachers  who  can  not  maintain  good 
discipline  without  a  resort  to  this  kind  of  punish- 
ment are  wholly  unfit  for  the  office  of  teaching. 
The  gentlemen  'who  urged  the  Committee  to 
report  a  bill  prohibiting  every  form  of  corporal 
punishment, were  not  experienced  teachers,  in  the 
common  schools  of  'New  England.  Most  of  them 
have  had  little  or  no  experience  in  this  department 
of  labor.  Most  of  the  gentlemen,  tuho  opposed 
the  legislation  asked  for,  'were  practical  teachers. 
Some  of  them  had  made  school  teaching  the  busi- 
ness of  their  lives.  They  acknowledged  that 
corporal  punishment  should  be  used  sparingly,  and 
as  a  last  resort;  but  they  claimed  that  its  prohibi- 


50  Public  Schools. 

tion  by  legal  enactment  would  be  disastrous.  They 
claimed  there  were  disorderly,  lawless,  and  perverse 
pupils,  who  would  yield  only  to  superior  force,  and 
who  could  be  kept  in  subjection  to  good  discipline 
only  by  the  fear  of  punishment.  They  claimed 
that  government,  whether  family,  school  or  civil, 
implied  power  to  enforce  its  laws.  They  claimed 
that  this  power,  in  school  government,  belonged  to 
the  teacher,  who  might  safely  be  intrusted  with  its 
exercise.  They  claimed  that  to  take  away  this 
power,  by  legal  enactment,  thereby  declaring  that 
the  kind  of  punishment  under  consideration  should 
never  be  inflicted,  not  even  in  the  most  extreme 
cases,  would  tend  to  degrade  teachers  in  the  esti- 
mation of  their  pupils,  who  would  understand  that 
the  legislature  did  not  regard  it  safe  to  trust  them 
with  the  exercise  of  so  dangerous  a  power.  They 
claimed  that  -persons  'with  'whom  this  power  could 
not  be  safely  trusted  'were  unfit  for  the  -position 
of  teacher,  and  should  not  be  allowed  to  fill  it. 
They  claimed  that  the  true  policy  was  to  educate 
teachers  for  their  work,  and  intrust  to  them  the 
government  of  the  schools,  including  the  power  to 
enforce  wholesome  rules  and  regulations,  with  the 
direction  to  exercise  discipline,  as  intelligent  and 
affectionate  parents  would  exercise  it  toward  the 
children  they  loved.  Granting  the  correctness  of 
much  that  was  said  by  the  advocates  for  the  pro- 


Report  of  the  President.  51 

hibition  of  corporal  punishment,  the  undersigned 
is,  nevertheless,  strongly  opposed  to  recommending 
the  legislation  asked  for. 

"  I  oppose  the  legislation  asked  for,  because  its 
advocates  have  failed  to  present  a  substitute  for 
corporal  punishment  ivhich  is  practicable.  The 
substitutes  recommended  were  the  following:  ist. 
Truant  schools,  to  which  pupils  should  be  sent 
who  would  not  submit  to  the  mild  government 
sustained  without  the  employment  of  force.  Such 
schools  would  be  impracticable  in  a  large  portion 
of  the  towns  in  our  Commonwealth.  2nd.  Suspen- 
sion, and,  if  necessary,  expulsion;  and  3rd.  Im- 
prisonment. Suspension  and  expulsion  would  not 
be  feared  by  many  on  whom  they  would  be  exer- 
cised; and  they  being  deprived  of  the  benefits  of 
school  would  be  a  far  greater  evil  to  them  than  the 
infliction  of  the  punishment  complained  of,  besides 
the  injury  inflicted  upon  society  by  the  turning  of 
such  pupils  from  the  schools  into  the  streets.  As 
to  imprisonment,  what  parent  would  consent  that 
his  children  should  be  subjected  to  it  for  the  offence 
of  violating  the  rules  of  school? 

"  Finally,  I  object  to  the  proposed  legislation  be- 
cause I  believe  that  the  evil  complained  of  can  be 
reduced  to  its  lowest  minimum,  if  not  driven  to  a 
position  where  it  will  be  held  far  more  in  theory 
than  in  practice,  by  other  means. 


52  Public  Schools. 

"  Let  it  be  inculcated  in  our  normal  schools, 
academies,  colleges  and  seminaries  in  which  teach- 
ers are  trained,  that  the  best  disciplinarians  punish 
the  least;  and  let  it  be  generally  understood  that 
they  are  worthy  of  the  highest  praise  who  maintain 
good  discipline  without  inflicting  physical  pain,  and 
public  opinion  will  so  regulate  punishment  in  our 
schools  as  to  render  it  harmless." —  Senator  Clark 
to  Massachusetts  Senate. 

In  the  city  of  Chicago  the  records  show  that  for 
several  months  there  has  been  an  average  of  but 
one  case  of  corporal  punishment  each  half  day  for 
every  ten  to  twelve  thousand  children  in  attend- 
ance. When  it  is  considered  that  even  the  most 
trivial  punishment  is  required  to  be  recorded,  it 
will  be  seen  that  the  amount  of  corporal  punish- 
ment in  the  public  schools  of  this  city  must  be 
rapidly  approaching  the  minimum  consistent  with 
the  welfare  of  the  schools,  if  indeed  that  point  be 
not  already  passed. 

I  am  firmly  of  the  opinion  that  the  latter  is  the 
case,  and  that  our  schools  are  suffering  from  a  lack 
of  discipline,  rather  than  an  excess  of  it.  The 
most  unremitting  exertions  of  the  teachers  are 
required  to  maintain  them  in  a  healthy  condition ; 
and  there  is  great  danger  that  in  the  effort  to  avoid 
corporal  punishment,  other  more  objectionable 


Report  of  the  President.  53 

methods  may  be  made  use  of.  Indeed,  in  every 
case  of  undue  or  injudicious  punishment  which  I 
have  been  called  to  investigate,  as  a  member 
of  this  Board,  the  trouble  has  arisen  from  an 
attempt  on  the  part  of  the  teacher,  either  systemati- 
cally or  for  the  time  being,  to  substitute  irregular 
and  exceptional  methods  of  discipline  for  those 
which  are  natural  and  well-established.  It  has 
been  well  said,  that  what  the  schools  of  Chicago 
need,  is  not  the  abolition  of  corporal  punishment, 
but  teachers  who  know  how  to  use  it;  and  that 
if  teachers  are  incapable  of  governing  their  schools 
by  the  aid  of  corporal  punishment,  they  are  unfit 
to  govern  them  without  it.  Teachers  honoring  the 
positions  they  hold,  we  have,  with  certainly  as  few 
exceptions  as  exist  among  any  like  number  of 
persons  of  any  other  employment  or  profession; 
and  I  trust  that  until  that  happy  time  shall  arrive 
when  humanity  shall  be  so  far  advanced  in  enlight- 
enment and  morality  as  to  be  able  to  dispense  with 
corporal  punishment  in  the  home,  that  they  may 
not  only  be  permitted,  but  encouraged  to  govern 
their  schools  by  the  exercise  of  that  benignant 
discipline  which  is  practiced  "  by  a  kind,  judicious 
parent  in  his  family." 


54  Public  Schools. 

While  there  is  no  reason  to  doubt  the  sincerity 
of  purpose  of  many  of  those  who  have  been  promi- 
nent advocates  for  the  abolition  of  corporal  punish- 
ment in  our  schools,  there  are  not  a  few  who  believe 
that  the  agitation  of  this  subject  has  its  root  in  sec- 
tarian opposition  to  our  entire  public  school  system. 

So  far  as  the  question  of  the  use  of  the  Protestant 
Bible  in  our  schools  is  concerned,  it  must  be  con- 
ceded that  the  weight  of  argument  lies  with  those 
who,  on  the  ground  of  religious  toleration,  ask  for 
its  removal.  One  of  the  great  central  ideas  of  our 
government  is  religious  liberty.  We  have  grown 
to  be  a  great  nation  because  here  liberty  is  best 
understood,  and  most  perfectly  enjoyed.  We 
represent  in  our  people  all  shades  of  religious 
opinion  and  belief.  Those  of  us  who  are  Protest- 
ants would  resent  any  attempt  on  the  part  of  the 
authorities  to  require  our  children  to  listen  to  a 
daily  lesson  from  the  Douay  Scriptures.  Why, 
then,  should  we  compel  our  Romanist  neighbor  to 
listen  to  the  version  of  King  James,  or  insist  that 
the  followers  of  Moses  join  in  the  reading  of  the 
New  Testament? 

The  division  among  sectarian  schools  of  our 
public  school  fund,  however,  rests  upon  an  entirely 
different  basis.  The  argument  which  favors  the 
removal  of  the  Bible  from  the  schools,  opposes  with 
equal  strength  the  diversion  of  any  portion  of  the 


Report  of  the  President.  55 

school  fund  to  sectarian  purposes.  The  public  are 
taxed  to  support  a  system  of  free  schools  —  to 
educate  the  whole  people.  The  spirit  of  our  free 
institutions  does  not  countenance  the  fostering  of 
any  class  or  sect  at  the  expense  of  another,  or  to 
its  exclusion.  The  greatest  good  of  the  whole  must 
be  the  end  in  view,  and  if  this  fails  to  reach  the 
peculiar  necessities  of  any  individual  it  is  his  mis- 
fortune, not  the  fault  of  the  system. 

Assuming  that  the  positions  above  taken  are  cor- 
rect in  principle,  would  it  not  be  best,  by  discon- 
tinuing the  use  of  all  versions  of  the  Scriptures  in 
our  schools,  to  remove  the  only  tenable  ground  of 
opposition  to  their  hearty  support  on  the  part  of 
any  portion  of  our  citizens  ? 

The  question  of  the  introduction  of  scientific 
training  into  the  general  education  of  the  country, 
is  a  topic  which  has  occupied  considerable  atten- 
tion in  the  public  mind  for  the  last  few  years,  and 
upon  which  public  opinion  has  undergone  a  rapid 
modification. 

Mr.  Carlyle  says  that  for  many  years  "  it  has 
been  one  of  my  constant  regrets  that  no  school- 
master of  mine  had  a  knowledge  of  natural  history, 
so  far  at  least  as  to  have  taught  me  the  grasses 
that  grow  by  the  wayside,  and  the  little  winged 
and  wingless  neighbors  that  are  continually  meet- 

5 


56  Public  Schools. 

ing  me  with  a  salutation  I  can  not  answer,  as  things 
are.  Why  didn't  somebody  teach  me  the  constel- 
lations, too,  and  make  me  at  home  in  the  starry 
heavens  which  are  always  overhead,  and  which  I 
don't  half  know  to  this  day  ?  I  love  to  prophesy 
that  there  will  come  a  time  when  in  all  Scottish 
and  European  lands  and  colleges  the  schoolmaster 
will  be  strictly  required  to  possess  these  two  capa- 
bilities, and  that  no  ingenious  little  denizen  of  this 
universe  will  be  thenceforward  debarred  from  his 
right  of  liberty  in  these  two  departments,  and 
doomed  to  look  at  them  as  across  grated  fences  all 
his  life." 

It  was  a  pertinent  inquiry  which  Lord  Bacon 
made,  whether  we  "  are  the  richer  by  one  poor 
invention  by  reason  of  all  the  learning  that  hath 
been  learnt  for  these  many  hundred  years  in 
schools?" 

So  thoroughly  has  this  idea  become  infused  into 
the  minds  of  the  English  people  that  the  Govern- 
ment has  taken  hold  of  the  matter,  and  through 
the  Department  of  Science  and  Art,  are  endeavoring 
to  diffuse  practical  knowledge  and  art  among 
working-men.  This  department  aids  some  three 
hundred  schools,  scattered  all  over  the  kingdom. 
Its  funds  are  not  squandered  by  political  influence, 
but  given  as  the  reward  of  the  hard  and  profitable 
work  of  teacher  and  pupil.  Fourteen  thousand 
pupils  attend  these  schools,  which  are  mostly 


Report  of  the  President.  57 

evening  schools,  and  accessible  to  actual  working 
people.  For  this  work  the  department  paid,  in 
the  year  ending  March,  1868,  more  than  £144,000. 
Of  this  sum,  only  £13,000  was  in  direct  payment 
of  teachers  —  the  balance  being  for  books,  museums, 
etc.  The  subjects  taught  were  mathematics, 
chemistry,  natural  philosophy,  botany,  zoology, 
physiology,  geology,  mechanics,  navigation,  mining, 
metallurgy,  civil  engineering,  drawing,  painting, 
and  modeling. 

There  seems  on  every  hand  to  be  a  growing 
conviction  that  in  many  respects  our  systems  of 
education  have  not  been  what  they  should  be,  and 
that  "the  education  which  has  lain  outside  of  them 
has  been  largely  the  real  tutor  of  the  world."  In 
that  were  "  the  realities,  while  the  schools  taught 
shadows."  In  that  were  "  the  free  and  glad  con- 
spiracies of  the  sun  and  wind  and  rain,  trooping 
together  to  accomplish  what  academic  traditions 
were  too  discordant  or  too  dull  to  do." 

The  real  value  of  the  new  education  is  that  "  it 
proposes  to  unite  in  better  balance  and  efficiency 
the  old  elements  of  instruction,  while  it  adds  the 
novel  ones  deemed  necessary  by  the  demands  of 
the  age."  I  do  not  wish  to  be  understood  as 
sympathizing  with  that  spirit  which  denounces  all 
classical  learning.  "  For  students  preparing  for 
college  or  professional  life  it  is  indispensable,  not 


58  Public  Schools. 

because  it  is  customary  or  prescribed,  but  likewise 
for  its  intrinsic  merits.  Wherever  health,  capacity 
and  condition  admit  of  high  culture,  scholastic 
studies  are  agencies  potential  for  giving  command 
of  language,  refining  the  faculties,  and  invigorating 
the  mental  powers." 

On  this  point,  Prof.  Huxley,  in  a  late  address, 
says:  "There  are  other  forms  of  culture  beside 
physical  science,  and  I  should  be  profoundly  sorry 
to  see  the  fact  forgotten,  or  even  to  observe  a 
tendency  to  starve  or  cripple  literary  or  aesthetic 
culture  for  the  sake  of  science.  Stick  a  narrow 
view  of  the  nature  of  education  has  nothing  to 
do  with  my  firm  conviction  that  a  complete  and 
thorough  scientific  culture  ought  to  be  intro- 
duced in  all  schools.  By  this  I  do  not  mean  that 
every  school-boy  should  be  taught  everything  in 
science.  That  would  be  a  very  absurd  thing  to 
conceive,  and  a  very  mischievous  thing  to  attempt. 
What  I  mean  is,  that  no  boy  or  girl  should  leave 
school  without  possessing  a  grasp  of  the  general 
character  of  science,  and  without  having  been 
disciplined  more  or  less  in  the  methods  of  all 
sciences;  so  that  when  turned  into  the  world  to 
make  their  own  way,  they  shall  be  prepared  to  face 
scientific  discussions  and  scientific  problems,  not 
by  knowing  at  once  the  conditions  of  every  prob- 
lem, and  being  able  at  once  to  solve  it,  but  by 


Report  of  the  President.  59 

being  familiar  with  the  general  current  of  scientific 
thought,  and  being  able  to  apply  the  methods  of 
science  in  the  proper  way  when  they  have  ac- 
quainted themselves  with  the  conditions  of  the 
special  problem.  To  furnish  a  boy  such  an  educa- 
tion, it  is  by  no  means  necessary  that  he  should 
devote  his  whole  school  existence  to  physical 
science ;  it  is  not  even  necessary  for  him  to  give 
up  more  than  a  moderate  share  of  his  time  to  such 
studies  if  they  be  properly  selected  and  arranged, 
and  if  he  be  trained  in  them  in  a  fitting  manner." 

Concerning  one  division  of  this  great  subject, 
we  have  the  testimony  of  an  eminent  American 
clergyman,  to  whom,  to  use  his  own  language, 
"  it  came  only  as  an  autumn  flower,  late  in  the 
sunshine  of  our  academic  life." 

"  In  the  accurately  adjusted  scale  of  a  true  edu- 
cation, Natural  History  must,  we  think,  fill  a  large 
space.  We  appeal  for  it  as  a  discipline  calling 
out  eye  and  hand  and  brain  to  their  most  delicate 
and  best  performance,  and  as  a  recreation  peopling 
leisure  with  sweet  and  innocent  shapes. 

"  We  plead  that  it  is  practical,  and  that  it  leads 
man  among  organizations  and  laws  that  may  become 
comforts  or  luxuries  in  his  discreet  dominion;  and 
that  it  develops  the  poetic  faculty  by  its  kaleido- 
scopic shows  of  beauty  and  intelligence.  We 
claim  that  its  alphabet  is  simple  as  the  letters  of 


60  Public  Schools. 

our  mother  tongue;  that  its  combinations  are  as 
elaborate  and  grand  as  the  Paradise  Lost  which 
those  letters  may  make;  and  that  thus  it  is  milk 
for  babes  and  meat  for  men.  We  urge  that  if  you 
wish  to  educate  for  earth,  it  has  its  value  in  your 
scheme  as  helping  the  vision  to  behold  the  furniture 
of  our  physical  abode;  if  you  are  looking  beyond 
earth  and  thinking  of  what  faith  anticipates,  it 
agrees  with  faith  by  its  suggestions  of  a  Will,  to 
which  its  wonders  are  but  the  richly-woven  veil. 
To  bring  us  near  to  the  world  of  life,  in  which  we 
are  a  part,  yet  out  of  which  we  rise,  or  to  catch  us 
up  into  the  calm  chambers  of  meditation  from 
which  the  world  dwindles  and  its  noises  drop  off 
into  silence,  we  believe  to  be  within  the  power  of 
these  scientific  studies.  There  is  use  in  them,  and 
there  is  honor  in  them;  and  what  Cicero  wrote  so 
long  ago  in  his  plea  for  Archias,  and  wrote  so  well 
that  the  boy  Latinist  still  loves  to  quote  its  sonorous 
eloquence,  was  but  the  fitting  prelude  to  the  praise 
of  those  other  studies  which  have  placed  undying 
laurels  on  the  head  of  Audubon  and  Agassiz  and 
Humboldt. 

"  Whether  or  not  there  be  any  Cicero  to  plead 
for  it  to-day,  the  power  of  this  study  is  confessed 
on  every  hand.  The  immense  popularization  of 
science  is  an  index  of  this.  Books  are  not  printed 
for  the  solitude  of  a  desert;  and  the  current  litera- 


Report  of  the  President.  61 

ture  of  popular  natural  history  at  once  implies  and 
creates  readers.  It  is  a  curious  fact,  that  there  are 
no  children's  books  better  illustrated  by  the  highest 
skill  in  drawing  and  color  than  the  bits  of  natural 
history  placed  in  their  infant  hands.  Even  Cock 
Robin  finds  his  Audubon,  and  Whittington's  Cat 
its  Cuvier.  There  are  in  the  press  to-day,  under 
the  sanction  of  the  oldest  State  of  New  England 
and  the  golden  State  of  the  Pacific,  two  merely 
local  and  popular  reports  on  Natural  History,  that 
will  bring  the  birds  of  the  air  and  the  shells  of 
the  sea  to  every  fireside  in  the  finest  style  of  print 
and  art.  Some  of  the  most  remarkable  overflows 
of  charitable  wealth  of  the  last  few  years  have 
been  in  the  channels  of  Natural  History  Societies. 
To  crack  the  rocks  for  fossils  does  not  now  alto- 
gether imply  that  your  head  is  cracked  itself;  to 
study  beetles  or  hunt  butterflies  does  not  every- 
where earn  the  suspicion  that  you  are  bug  or  vermin 
mad;  nor  do  your  friends  simply  point  you  to  the 
reform  school  for  taking  toll  of  an  occasional  bird's- 
nest.  The  aquarium  and  fern-case  are  precious 
corners  of  nature  which  beauty  and  even  fashion 
does  not  disdain.  An  ingenious  and  profound 
naturalist  is  this  moment  toiling  to  reproduce  among 
the  wonders  of  the  great  Central  Park  of  New 
York,  the  images  of  the  huge  monsters  of  America's 
geologic  youth.  It  may  soon  become,  let  us  hope 


62  Public  Schools. 

it  will,  a  part  of  polite  education  not  to  be  ignorant 
of  these  things;  and  a  wrong  determination  in  sci- 
ence may  be  as  horrible  as  a  false  quantity  in 
quoting  Horace,  or  a  mutilation  of  the  Queen's 
English. 

"  One  very  common  error  about  Natural  History 
serves  also  as  an  argument  in  the  hands  of  the 
adherents  to  a  merely  classical,  mathematical,  and 
philosophical  curriculum.  We  allude  to  the  idea 
that  it  is  only  a  study  of  technicalities  and  dry 
classification;  while  a  word-mill  turned  by  natural- 
ists pours  out  continually  a  flood  of  Latin  and 
Greek  names  which  would  have  made  Cicero 
shudder,  and  would  have  been  sand  in  the  Attic 
salt.  r  Professors  are  pedants  here,'  says  the  objec- 
tor, 'and  Nature  a  show  of  ticketed  mummies.' 
Precisely  the  same  tendency  may  act  here,  we 
grant,  as  in  other  departments  of  instruction  and 
classified  knowledge.  Language  is  a  living  thing; 
bone  is  articulated  to  bone,  and  swung  in  ligaments; 
while  under  its  ribs  a  warm  heart  beats,  and  from 
its  brain  a  flexible  telegraph  directs  the  foot,  the 
lip,  the  hand.  But  language  is  taught  by  pedants 
sometimes;  and  the  exquisite  spirit  of  the  Greek,  or 
the  world-conquering  charge  of  the  Latin  is  gone 
in  their  handling,  as  surely  as  the  green  from  last 
year's  grass  or  the  birds  from  last  summer's  nest. 
Mathematics  is  not  a  soulless  array  of  figures, 


Report  of  the  President.  63 

equations,  and  lines;  but  a  world  of  order,  awe, 
beauty,  design, —  well  worthy  to  be  the  foundation 
of  all  knowledge.  Who  has  not  known  it,  in  its 
perversion,  as  the  dreariest  bondage  that  ever  made 
bricks  without  straw,  or  covered  a  slate  with  calcu- 
lations more  wearisome  than  death?  Philosophy, 
also,  golden-tongued,  telescopic-eyed,  majestic,  may 
degenerate  with  an  unphilosophic  book  or  teacher 
into  a  waterless  well,  where  two  empty  buckets, 
the  f  ego '  and  the  ?  non  ego '  pass  and  repass  till 
the  head  swims  and  the  heart  is  sick.  So  Botany 
may  deal  with  f  learned  hay,'  and  geology  with 
f  rocks  and  old  bones,'  while  Zoology  pets  ?  beasts 
and  snails,'  Entomology  ?  grubs  and  bugs,'  and 
Mycology  ?  mould  and  toad-stools.'  Nature  may 
become  worse  than  carrion.  But  with  Henslow, 
Carpenter,  Huxley,  Tyndall,  Gray,  or  Agassiz  to 
teach,  these  things  can  never  be.  Good  teachers 
are  not  to  be  picked  up  like  laborers  waiting  at  the 
corners  of  the  streets,  though  they  are  mostly  paid 
as  if  they  were;  and  in  the  practical  experience  of 
the  school,  all  cannot  give  the  necessary  glow  and 
life  to  the  subject  of  tuition.  But  the  cramp  of 
drill,  the  dust  of  professorship,  the  pedantry  of 
routine  are  not  peculiar  to  scientific  studies.  The 
intense  fascination  with  which  science  so-called 
magnetizes  its  devotees,  is,  we  venture  to  say,  unex- 
celled in  power  by  the  influence  of  any  other 
department  of  the  world's  knowledge. 


64  Public  Schools. 

"And  now,  what  is  the  -place  of  this  instruction 
of  Natural  History  in  our  ideal  scheme  of  Educa- 
tion ?  We  claim  that  scientific  instruction  should 
have  one  of  the  first  -places,  in  order  of  time,  in 
education.  It  appeals  to  the  first  senses  that 
mature,  the  first  powers  that  have  the  privilege  of 
experiment.  It  is  related  to  the  most  familiar  sights 
and  sounds  of  early  life.  Its  omission  is  the  parent 
of  superstitions  that  growth  makes  chronic.  Its 
neglect  robs  childhood  of  innocent  recreation  and 
useful  work  in  play.  Where  it  is  not,  one  door 
stands  open  to  vanity  and  wrong.  Our  old  con- 
servative systems  put  Natural  History  away,  as  the 
miser  shirks  the  execution  of  his  will.  These 
studies  are  nominally  or  partially  taught  in  High 
Schools;  in  their  fullest  extent  in  the  College  or 
a  few  special  departments.  On  any  theory,  there  is 
an  egregious  wrong  somewhere.  The  boy  can 
look  forward  to  a  smattering  of  Natural  History, 
perhaps,  just  before  active  life  beckons,  and  ?  its 
bounding  pulses  are  mated  with  his  veins.'  The 
girl  gets  only  the  crumbs  from  his  table,  —  and 
where  the  table  only  has  a  crust,  what  then  ?  Ad- 
mitting all  this  to  be  right,  the  instruction  comes 
too  late.  It  is  the  good  seed  among  thorns.  Already 
have  those  prejudices  which  thwart  the  aim  of  true 
scientific  instruction,  attained  too  rank  a  growth. 


Report* of  the  President.  65 

"Natural  History  belongs  in  the  Primary  School. 
Give  the  children  the  alphabet  which  is  the  key  to 
the  record  of  human  wit  and  folly,  but  let  them 
learn,  too,  the  alphabet  which  the  Divine  hand  has 
written  on  the  leaves  of  Nature.  We  wish  that 
Henslow's  life  could  be  told  so  that  all  could  hear. 
It  is  a  sweet,  beautiful  story  of  an  humble  sphere 
made  radiant  and  wide  with  celestial  glory.  He 
buried  himself,  as  the  world  would  say,  in  a  mean 
country  parish.  Talents  that  thrilled  London  were 
dropt  in  the  furrows  where  plowmen  walked, 
scarce  nobler  than  the  clod.  But  he  was  buried 
only  as  the  violet  and  acorn  are,  under  the  snow. 
Perfume  and  strength  grew  out  of  the  soil  at  last. 
In  a  word,  the  appeal  of  an  eminent  botanist,  for 
such  Henslow  was,  to  the  children  of  the  parish, — 
his  instruction,  his  friendliness,  his  patient  labor  to 
make  them  see  the  works  of  the  great  Father, — 
gave,  ere  he  died,  the  glow  of  intellectual  and  reli- 
gious life  to  that  sullen  and  sottish  town.  He  put 
the  study  of  Nature  in  its  best  place,  the  childrens ' 
hands,  and  great  was  his  reward. 

"  The  place  of  Natural  History  is  amid  the  most 
unstinted  expenditure  and  the  most  careful  pro- 
vision for  its  instruction.  It  is  not  to  go  hiding 
in  a  corner.  It  is  not  to  be  the  ravelled  hem  of  the 
tutor's  gown. 

"  By  this  we  mean,  that  every  public  school, rising 


66  Public  Schools. 

from  the  lowest  grade,  should  be  supplied  with 
books,  pictures,  apparatus,  and  cabinets,  sufficient 
for  the  work  of  a  thorough  instruction  in  Natural 
History.  And  the  single  piece  of  apparatus  which 
will  afford  the  most  satisfaction  and  instruction  to 
old  and  young  at  the  least  cost,  is  the  microscope. 
?  Within  that  instrument  lies  the  revelation  of  a 
world  more  variable  and  populous  than  that  which 
is  revealed  to  the  unaided  eye  of  man.  Like  the 
work  of  some  mighty  genius  of  oriental  fable,  the 
brazen  tube  is  the  key  which  unfolds  a  world  of 
wonder  and  beauty  before  invisible,  and  which  one 
who  has  once  gazed  upon  can  never  forget,  and 
never  cease  to  admire.'  The  question  of  supplying 
these  aids  is  one  at  once  of  right  and  of  economy. 

u  We  may,  perhaps,  lament  the  decline  of  the 
old  Spartan  virtue  which  made  money  of  iron, 
and  men  of  gold.  We  ought  not  to  be  compelled 
to  state  the .  fact,  however,  that  we  so  thoroughly 
ignore  the  right  our  children  have  to  education  in 
the  laws  and  forms  of  the  universe  which,  we 
hope,  is  to  be  for  three-score  years  their  home. 
If  duty  ever  governed  a  dollar  it  ought  to  do  it 
here.  It  is  economical,  too,  as  we  have  hinted, 
to  furnish  these  appliances  for  culture.  We  have 
only  two  elements  in  our  capital  —  our  land  and 
our  labor.  Intelligence  of  every  honest  kind 
fertilizes  the  one  and  gives  skill  to  the  other.  For 


Report  of  the  President.  67 

our  enjoyment  in  this  world,  too,  we  have  but  two 
factors,  our  world-home  and  ourselves,  and  the 
more  we  get  out  of  life,  the  happier  we  are.  It  is 
economy  to  give  as  thorough  knowledge  of  nature 
as  schools  can  confer.  Enough  will  come  from 
discovery  and  invention  to  make  the  investment 
good.  It  is  economy  to  add  to  the  resources  of 
innocent  joy.  Life  grows  long  and  prisons  empty 
in  this  way.  Have  we  any  blood  in  our  veins,  or 
only  water,  like  the  worms  that  are  only  half- 
warmed  clay? 

"We  may  build  costly  academies  and  schools, 
and  this  is  well.  Better  a  temple  than  a  den!  But 
as  the  hull  of  the  steamer  to  the  engine,  so  is  the 
building  to  the  machinery  that  is  to  find  its  work 
to  do  within.  Apart  from  this,  the  great  hulk  lies 
stranded  and  motionless,  to  be  wrapped  in  the 
shroud  of  the  rotting  weed,  and  dissolve  away  at 
last.  The  people  have  what  they  think  they  want. 
It  is  a  grave  question  how  much  hay  or  corn  or 
fish  or  lumber  are  raised  or  exported,  and  how 
much  taxes  can  be  pared  or  scrimped.  The  best 
crops  are  left  at  some  points  to  nature's  charity. 
Every  farmer  knows  how  many  teeth  and  claws 
are  waiting  for  the  first  leaves  that  spring  from 
every  seed  he  plants,  —  those  first  tender  leaves 
that  hold  the  future  of  the  plant  in  their  delicate 
hands.  Shall  we  think  there  is  a  less  crisis  when 


68  Public  Schools. 

the  first  leaves  of  future  citizenhood  or  matronhood 
open  to  the  light?" 

While  natural  history  can  easily  be  worked  into 
the  routine  of  the  school,  it  should  also  take  its 
place  among  the  recreations  of  the  family,  where 
it  will  be  most  effective  in  promoting  a  good  moral 
end.  The  school  will  lay  the  foundation;  but  since 
school-time  for  the  mass  of  the  people  is  short,  its 
chief  cultivation  must  take  place  independent  of 
school  aid,  and  after  its  termination.  And  if  a 
capacity  for  making  intelligent  observation  can  be 
cultivated  in  youth,  which  shall  grow  into  a  fixed 
habit,  few  will  be  without  opportunities  for  their 
exercise  in  the  years  of  manhood  and  age.  We 
believe  our  system  of  education  must  come  to  this 
at  last.  Perhaps  Lexington  did  not  intend  to 
begin  the  revolution.  It  came  nevertheless  in 
her  musket-balls.  So  it  may  be  forced  on  some 
community  to  begin  another  revolution,  for  which 
a  more  intelligent  posterity  will  honor  its  uncon- 
scious virtue. 

"  We  sometimes  dream  of  the  perfect  school- 
house  of  the  future  —  a  building  that  stands,  haply, 
among  the  lights  of  the  twentieth  century  —  a 
building  conspicuous  even  among  the  temples  of  its 
sublime  faith  or  the  halls  of  its  progressive  govern- 
ment. We  dream  of  it,  as  visited  by  the  genial 
breath  of  the  air,  and  loving  smiles  of  the  sun; 


Report  of  the  President.  69 

never  a  tropic  desert  of  withered  heat  nor  an  arctic 
desolation  of  frost.  Pure  as  the  air  itself  is  the 
children's  blood,  vigorous  their  limbs  as  the  physical 
culture  which  is  molding  them  into  manly  and 
womanly  beauty.  And  together  with  the  body's 
training  the  mental  work  is  attuned  to  Heaven's 
own  rule.  We  fancy  its  government  the  law  of 
love,  and  mutiny  or  discord  a  thing  unknown, 
though  the  spacious  halls  are  thronged  and  the 
teacher's  dais  full.  Pictures  speak  from  the  wall; 
books  are  not  few;  all  that  can  illustrate  the  seen 
or  unseen  in  creation,  stands  or  moves  or  shines  in 
its  proper  place.  And  we  can  only  give  an  espe- 
cial niche  of  honor  to  one  great  culture,  that,  among 
these  various  agencies,  is  making  ready  for  useful 
and  honored  lives  these  young  spirits  —  the  culture 
that  teaches  them  the  story  of  the  world  in  which 
they  live,  that  fills  its  forms  with  glory  and  unveils 
its  laws.  Such  a  school  may  be  more  than  a  dream 
—  it  will  be,  if  we  do  something  more  than  dream 
about  it  to-day." 

Respectfully  submitted, 

S.  A.  BRIGGS,  President. 


L 


